The idea of a daring wartime trip by Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Washington had percolated for some time before the surprise visit was revealed just hours ahead of the Ukrainian president’s arrival.

During an October summit in Zagreb, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi discussed with her counterpart in the Ukrainian parliament the prospect of Zelenskyy addressing the U.S. Congress. Similarly, Biden administration officials had for months talked with Ukraine about a Zelenskyy visit to the White House, hoping for one before year’s end to send an unmistakable signal of support ahead of a brutal winter that could deepen Russian President Vladimir Putin’s assault.

In previous calls, Zelenskyy had indicated to President Joe Biden and other senior officials that the United States was the first country he wanted to visit when the time was right for him to travel, according to a U.S. official with knowledge of the conversations. So, in a December 11 phone call between the two leaders, Biden reiterated the invitation.

This time, Zelenskyy told Biden, was the right time.

“I really wanted to come earlier. Mr. President knows about it, but I couldn’t do it because the situation was so difficult,” Zelenskyy said from the Oval Office on Wednesday. The trip could happen now, the Ukrainian leader said, because “we controlled the situation and … first of all, because of your support.”

Ensuring a swift, safe journey

The behind-the-scenes details of Zelenskyy’s surprise visit to Washington were described by an aide to Pelosi, a U.S. official and a senior administration official, all of whom requested anonymity to describe planning for the secret trip. Once the wheels of planning started to roll, Zelenskyy’s 10-hour visit — which packed in an Oval Office meeting with Biden, a joint news conference at the White House and an address to a largely supportive Congress — came together quickly.

What came about Wednesday was an elaborately executed plan by U.S. and Ukrainian officials to swiftly and safely route Zelenskyy to Washington, his first known trip outside the country’s borders since Russia’s invasion in February.

The Ukrainian president crossed into Poland early Wednesday, according to Poland’s private broadcaster, TVN24, arriving at a train station in Przemysl, a border town and the arrival point for many refugees fleeing the war. Accompanied by the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink, Zelenskyy was transported in a U.S. Embassy vehicle to an airport in Rzeszow, where he boarded a nonstop flight that landed at Joint Base Andrews shortly after noon Wednesday.

Carrying Zelenskyy to Andrews was a U.S. Air Force jet — a government plane typically used for Cabinet secretaries and other dignitaries below the president and vice president. The White House didn’t publicly announce the impending Zelenskyy visit until 1 a.m. Wednesday — waiting until they felt Zelenskyy was safely out of Ukraine.

Once Zelenskyy landed, Secret Service protection kicked in, as is typically done for visiting heads of state.

Paving the way

The senior administration official said the U.S. consulted closely with Zelenskyy on his security, and that the Ukrainian president felt it was sufficient for him to travel to the United States briefly.

Meanwhile, Pelosi had been planting the seeds for months for a Zelenskyy address to Congress.

She had been at the Zagreb summit in October at the invitation of Zelenskyy and Ruslan Stefanchuk, the speaker of the Ukrainian parliament. There, Zelenskyy spoke to the audience of “the importance of the free world’s unshakable solidarity with Ukraine” — an address that Pelosi emphasized in her invitation to the Ukrainian president.

The U.S. House speaker returned from Croatia and began discussing the idea of a Zelenskyy address, informing other congressional leaders — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell — about her conversations abroad and asking for their support for the Ukrainian leader to come to the Capitol.

On Wednesday, Pelosi — just days away from handing over her gavel to Republican control — welcomed Zelenskyy to the Capitol, which she called a “profound privilege” and a “great pride,” coming at a moment when Capitol Hill is about to greenlight an additional $45 billion in emergency aid to Ukraine.

Before he left Ukraine, there were clues in Zelenskyy’s own words that a surprise trip abroad could be in the works.

In a visit Tuesday to Bakhmut, located in Ukraine’s contested Donetsk province, Zelenskyy was handed a Ukrainian flag. He pledged then that he would pass on the flag “from the boys to the Congress, to the president of the United States.”

Standing before the U.S. Congress on Wednesday night, Zelenskyy produced the flag — covered in signatures by Ukrainian troops battling on the front lines.

“They asked me to bring this flag to you, to the U.S. Congress, to members of the House of Representatives and senators whose decisions can save millions of people,” Zelenskyy said in his final words to lawmakers. “So let these decisions be taken. Let this flag stay with you. Ladies and gentlemen, this flag is a symbol of our victory in this war.”
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French authorities plan to use an AI-assisted crowd control system to monitor people during the 2024 Paris Olympics, according to a draft law seen by AFP on Thursday.

The system is intended to allow the security services to detect disturbances and potential problems more easily, but will not use facial recognition technology, the bill says.

The technology could be particularly useful during the highly ambitious open-air opening ceremony  with Olympians sailing down the river Seine in front of a crowd of 600,000 people.

French police and sports authorities faced severe criticism in May after shambolic scenes during the Champions League final in Paris when football fans were caught in a crowd crush and teargassed.

The draft law, which was presented to the cabinet on Thursday, proposes other security measures including the use of full-body scanners and increases the sentences for hooliganism.

Organizers and Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin have both argued in favor of using so-called “intelligent” security camera software that scans images for suspect or dangerous behavior.

The use of such a system during the Olympics is an “experimentation”, the draft law says, but could be applied for future public events which face terrorism-related or crowd control risks.

“No biometric data is used, nor facial recognition technology and it does not enable any link or interconnection or automatic flagging with any other personal data system,” the bill states.

The games’ organizing committee said on November 21 that it needed to lift its budget estimate by 10 per cent from 3.98 billion euros to 4.48bn euros, partly as a result of inflation.

Rather than opening the games in an athletics stadium as is customary, organizers have planned a ceremony on July 26, 2024 with a flotilla of some 200 boats sailing down the river Seine.

The banks of the river can accommodate 100,000 people who will have to buy tickets, while another 500,000 are set to watch for free from the street level, according to government estimates.

The draft law is expected to be debated in parliament in January where the minority government of President Emmanuel Macron will need support from opposition groups to pass it.
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Germany arrested a foreign intelligence service agent on Wednesday on suspicion of sharing state secrets with Russia this year, raiding his home and workplace as well as that of another person.

“The accused is suspected of state treason,” the federal prosecutors’ office said in a statement. “In 2022, he shared information that he came by in the course of his work with a Russian intelligence agency. The content is considered a state secret.”

The federal intelligence service (BND) had started its own internal investigation as soon as it became aware of the possibility of treason within its own ranks, BND head Bruno Kahl said. When these suspicions hardened up, it called in federal prosecutors.

Discretion was key going forwards, as any detail of the investigation that was made public could give the “opponent an advantage in its intent to harm Germany,” he said.

“With Russia, we are dealing with an actor where we must reckon with its ruthlessness and willingness to be violent.”
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The Senate voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to confirm the new U.S. ambassador to Russia.

Hours before Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived in Washington for a historic visit, senators voted to 93-2 to confirm veteran diplomat Lynne M. Tracy as the new ambassador to Russia. Some viewed it as a signal of the American commitment to war-torn Ukraine as it confronts the Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer opened the chamber’s session by saying that Wednesday’s passage of a fresh $45 billion military aid package for Ukraine and confirmation of the new U.S. ambassador to Russia would send a strong signal that Americans stand “unequivocally” with the Ukrainian people.

Tracy, a career member of the Foreign Service who previously served as ambassador to Armenia, “will be tasked with standing up to Putin,” Schumer said. The only two votes against Tracy came from GOP Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Rand Paul of Kentucky, both of whom have been skeptical of the administration’s support for Ukraine.

Tracy will oversee an embassy in Moscow that has been decimated in terms of staffing as U.S.-Russia ties have plummeted over the war in Ukraine along with several long-standing and unrelated diplomatic disputes over personnel and facilities and compounded by disagreements over arms control.

Tracy, who speaks Russian, previously served as a senior adviser for Russian affairs in the State Department’s Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, as the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. She also held several posts in Central and South Asia.

The previous U.S. ambassador to Moscow, John Sullivan, left Russia in early September in a departure that had been expected but was accelerated by the failing health of his wife, who died a day after his return to the United States.

Tracy is well-regarded within diplomatic circles and received a State Department heroism award from then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2009.

While leading the U.S. consulate in Peshawar in Pakistan’s insurgency-ridden border regions, Tracy survived an attack on her by a gunman that left her vehicle riddled with bullets, but insisted on going to work that day and staying on post, even as security concerns compelled the consulate to trim its staff.

Tracy also received the State Department’s distinguished honor award for her work as the embassy deputy in Moscow.
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Spain was plunged into an unprecedented constitutional crisis this month after judges blocked a law for the first time since the return of democracy.  

This young democracy was facing its first major upheaval since the illegal Catalan independence referendum in 2017 caused the deepest political crisis in decades.  

Growing political polarization ahead of elections next year meant Spain was embroiled in the same problems which have beset the United States and Britain, observers said.   

Lawmakers last week approved a government bill to change how the judiciary’s governing council, known as General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), operates, paving the way for the leftist government’s two nominees to get onto the Constitutional Court. 

But judges in the Constitutional Court Monday voted by six votes to five to grant an order sought by the opposition People’s Party (PP) which paralyzed the bill. The PP had argued that the way the law had been framed was not legal.   

Legislative process interrupted 

It is the first time the legislative process has been interrupted by the court since Spain returned to democracy in 1978, three years after the death of longtime ruler General Francisco Franco.   

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said he respected the court’s ruling but was determined to push through a change to alter the way the CGPJ is made up. He did not specify what this would be. 

“These events are unprecedented in the democratic history of our country but also in the history of any other country in the European institutional area,” he said Tuesday.  

Opposition parties countered that the government had tried to rush through emergency reforms of an institution which was key to the country’s democracy.  

“Sanchez and his supporters are presenting this as an attack on parliament (but) it’s actually a defense,” said Alberto Nunez Feijoo, the PP leader.  

Known as Spain’s legal watchdog, the CGPJ has 20 members made up of 12 judges and eight lawyers, who are elected by both chambers of the Spanish parliament.  

The mandates of one-third of the constitutional court’s judges, three conservatives and one liberal, have expired. Political disagreements over their replacements have dragged on for four years as the main political parties cannot agree on how this should take place.  

The government’s proposed reforms would have renewed the mandates of the four members of the constitutional court in a move which Sanchez said was necessary to end the deadlock and free up a court system which was hamstrung because of the dispute.   

However, the PP accused the government of trying to fill the courts with leftist allies and it argues that judges, not politicians, should vote on new judges.  

Concern in the region 

The stalemate over a key body controlling the judiciary has prompted criticism from the European Commission, or EC. The commission has urged Spain to find a solution because it believes a key democratic institution has been damaged.  

The bill passed last week also seeks to lower jail terms for crimes of sedition and misuse of public funds. Opponents in the PP and far-right Vox party claim this will benefit the leaders of Catalan separatist parties who backed a failed independence declaration in 2017. 

Sanchez relies on the votes of the separatist Catalan Esquerra Republicana (ERC) party to pass legislation and may depend on the party at next year’s election.  

Last year, the Spanish prime minister pardoned nine Catalan separatists for their role in the illegal referendum which caused the deepest crisis in Spain for decades.  

Camino Mortera, of the Center for European Reform, a research institution, said the Spanish government’s attempts to interfere in the composition of the judiciary had worrying overtones of events in Poland and Hungary. 

Warsaw and Budapest have muzzled the independent judiciary in moves which have concerned the European Commission and civil rights groups. 

“Given what is happening with Poland and Hungary, just a mere suspicion that a government is trying to intervene in any way in the composition of a court through emergency legislation raises suspicions,” she told VOA.  

She said Brussels has been concerned that after the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries have tried to use emergency legislation to make important changes, as happened in Spain over the constitutional court. 

Growing polarization 

“Polarization in Spain is very worrying. This has happened in other countries. I am talking about the U.S. and the U.K. It worries me because we are not a country that deals with drama well,” she said.  

“When (this translates) to the political world, you have (the far-right) Vox and (far-left) Podemos. I worry what is going to happen if the Socialist government loses the next election. Feijoo is a calming figure, but I don’t think he will be able to govern on his own. The most radical thing you can be in Spain is to be centrist and moderate.”   

Polls have shown that the PP is expected to win the election, but Feijoo will not be able to govern without the help of Vox.   

Pablo Simon, a political expert at the University Carlos III in Madrid, said the fallout from the clash between parliament and the court showed how fractured Spain’s political life had become.  

“Polarization is damaging the democracy in Spain as is happening in the U.S.,” he told VOA.   

Some information in this report came from Agence France-Presse.
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Russia said Thursday there were no signs of readiness for peace from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to Washington. 

U.S. President Joe Biden hosted Zelenskyy for talks at the White House and later the Ukrainian leader addressed a joint session of the U.S. Congress, where he said Ukraine “will never surrender” in its battle against the invasion Russia launched 10 months ago. 

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Zelenskyy’s visit showed the United States is fighting an indirect war against Russia. 

The United States has provided extensive military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, and on Wednesday announced a new package that includes Patriot air defense missiles.  Zelenskyy said the more advanced system will help Ukraine deal with Russian missile attacks that have hit his country’s cities and critical infrastructure. 

Peskov said the Patriot missiles will not help resolve the conflict nor deter Russia from its goals.   

Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse and Reuters .
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The alleged boss of Asia’s biggest crime syndicate and one of the world’s most wanted men has been extradited to Australia and arrested on drug trafficking charges, police said Thursday.    

Chinese-born Canadian Tse Chi Lop, 59, is suspected of being the leader of an Asian mega-cartel known as Sam Gor, a major global producer and supplier of methamphetamines.   

He is expected to appear in Melbourne Magistrates’ Court Thursday to answer a charge of “conspiracy to traffic commercial quantities of controlled drugs” after being extradited from the Netherlands.    

Tse, dubbed Asia’s “El Chapo” in reference to Mexican drug lord Joaquin Guzman’s nickname, faces life imprisonment if convicted.    

Australian police hailed it as “one of the most high-profile arrests in the history” of the country.   

The Sam Gor organization — or “The Company” — is believed to launder billions in drug money through casinos, hotels and real estate in Southeast Asia’s Mekong region.    

Tse was detained at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in January 2021 after a decade-long hunt.   

He had been the subject of an Interpol Red Notice.    

Australian Federal Police assistant commissioner Krissy Barrett said the arrest came after a “very complex investigation.”    

“We allege this male is the head of a large transnational organized crime syndicate,” she said.    

“By their very nature, these very senior figures within the syndicates obviously deliberately stay hands-off in terms of the business dealings.”   

“That’s why it’s such a significant arrest and why it has taken a fair amount of time.”    

Australian police said that the charges relate to a specific 2012-2013 operation transferring drugs from Melbourne to Sydney.    

A police sting at the time nabbed 27 people and netted 20 kilos of methamphetamine with a current street value of around $3 million.    

A second man has also been arrested after being extradited from Thailand.    

“The hard work of investigators, and the (Australian Federal Police) international network, has enabled these alleged offenders to be charged and face the justice system in Australia,” said Barrett.  
…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday addressed the U.S. Congress as a wartime leader appealing for American support, as British Prime Minister Winston Churchill did more than 80 years before. 

Zelenskyy’s visit to Washington, much like Churchill’s in December 1941, came with his country under relentless attack and international aid essential to its ability to fight on. 

“Ukraine holds its lines and will never surrender,” Zelenskyy told Congress, echoing one of Churchill’s most famous phrases and earning a standing ovation. 

Zelenskyy earlier this year channeled Churchill in a video address to Britain’s House of Commons, pledging to “fight in the forests, in the fields, on the shores, in the streets.” 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he had told Zelensky “that where Winston Churchill stood generations ago, so too does he tonight not just as a president but as an ambassador for freedom itself.” 

The comparison between Churchill’s and Zelensky’s trips to the United States has its limits, however, including in the length of the Ukrainian leader’s stay. 

Churchill spent three weeks in Washington at the invitation of President Franklin Roosevelt, a lengthy visit that historians say wore on the nerves of first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who did not enjoy the two men’s late-night cigar- and brandy-fueled conversations. 

Zelenskyy’s trip lasted only a few hours and included a meeting in the Oval Office, a joint press conference with President Joe Biden, and the speech to Congress. 

Churchill ventured across the Atlantic by ship despite the threat of submarines, while Zelenskyy made the journey via aircraft. 

When Churchill arrived in the United States, he found a country shaken by the Japanese attack on the naval base at Pearl Harbor and drawn into an international conflict it had sought to avoid. 

While Biden is willing to be compared to Roosevelt for his ambitious economic reforms, he does not want to be drawn into a third world war, making clear that he will not send troops to Ukraine, nor even certain types of weapons, in a bid to avoid escalation.
…

U.S. President Joe Biden welcomed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the White House Wednesday, marking Zelenskyy’s first known visit outside Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion of the country in February.

“Ukrainian people continue to inspire the world,” Biden said. “Not just inspire us, but inspire the world, with their courage and how they chose their resilience and resolve for their future.”

The American people “have stood proudly” with Ukrainians, he said.

“Democrats and Republicans together with our allies in Europe and Japan and other places, to make sure you have the financial, humanitarian and security assistance that is needed,” Biden said, noting that it has been 300 days since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his “brutal assault on Ukraine’s right to exist as a nation.”

Zelenskyy, who spoke in English, extended to Biden his appreciation for the bipartisan support “from my heart, the hearts of Ukrainians, all Ukrainians.”

“Thanks, from our just ordinary people, to your ordinary people, Americans,” he said.

Zelenskyy also gave Biden a Cross for Military Merit medal that belonged to a Ukrainian soldier, a captain of a HIMARS battery provided by the U.S. The soldier had asked Zelenskyy to give it to the “very brave president.” Accepting the medal, Biden said it was “undeserved, but much appreciated.”

Later, during a joint press conference, Zelenskyy thanked “the people of America. People who do so much for Ukraine. I am thankful for all of that.”

He also thanked Biden for the new package of aid, including a Patriot battery system, saying it “will strengthen our air defense significantly. This is a very important step to create secure airspace for Ukraine,” preventing Russia from attacking “our energy sector, our people and our infrastructure.”

In a briefing to reporters Tuesday evening, a senior administration official said Zelenskyy’s visit carries a symbolic importance, providing an opportunity to “underscore the United States’ enduring commitment to Ukraine.”

“This is about sending a message to Putin and sending a message to the world that America will be there for Ukraine for as long as it takes,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity as is customary for such briefings.

“President Putin badly miscalculated the beginning of this conflict when he presumed that the Ukrainian people would yield and that NATO would be disunited. He was wrong on both those counts. He remains wrong about our staying power. And that’s what this visit will demonstrate.”

The trip comes as U.S. lawmakers are debating another $45 billion in emergency aid to Ukraine, which would bring the total American wartime assistance to more than $100 billion. Zelenskyy was set to speak before a joint meeting of Congress later Wednesday.

“Zelenskyy may want to make a strong public case for U.S. support at a time when some Republicans and some progressives in the House have expressed skepticism about aid to Ukraine,” said William Courtney, adjunct senior fellow at RAND.

A recent Chicago Council poll finds that 65% of Americans continue to support U.S. assistance to Ukraine. And 48% say the U.S. should support Ukraine “as long as it takes,” while 47% want Washington to urge Kyiv to settle for peace as soon as possible.

While Zelenskyy is not known to have left Ukraine since the invasion began in February, he has made visits outside of the capital, Kyiv, including going Tuesday to the eastern city of Bakhmut, where his forces have been engaged in heavy fighting. He made a stop in Poland on the way to Washington.

Patriot missile defense

As Zelenskyy touched down on U.S. soil, the U.S. Department of Defense announced $1.85 billion in additional security assistance for Ukraine, which includes a Patriot air defense battery and munitions, additional ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), missiles, artillery and other munitions. It’s the 28th such drawdown of equipment Biden has authorized since August 2021.

“This $1 billion drawdown will provide Ukraine with expanded air defense and precision-strike capabilities, as well as additional munitions and critical equipment that Ukraine is using so effectively to defend itself on the battlefield,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

Blinken said the U.S. is also announcing an additional $850 million of security assistance, bringing the total to an unprecedented $21.9 billion since the beginning of the administration.

Zelenskyy has repeatedly urged the U.S. and others to provide air defense systems that could help Ukraine deal with missile and drone attacks by Russian forces that have hit cities across the country and battered its infrastructure.

The senior administration official said Ukrainian forces will be trained on how to use the Patriot system in a third country, adding that the process “will take some time.”

“Ukrainian soldiers are the fastest I’ve ever seen at learning new technology. They’ll do it somewhere in Germany, or Poland, I’m imagining,” said retired commanding general, United States Army Europe Ben Hodges in an interview with VOA Ukrainian.

The Patriot, designed to protect a limited area is “the best in the world for its purpose,” Hodges said, “to knock down cruise missiles, and advanced aircrafts” but is “not a silver bullet.”

At the joint press conference later Wednesday, when asked why Ukraine couldn’t be given all the weapons capabilities it was asking for, Biden said the U.S. was giving Ukraine what it needed to be able to defend itself and succeed on the battlefield.

“The idea that we would give Ukraine material that is fundamentally different than what is already going there would have a prospect of breaking up NATO and breaking up the European Union and the rest of the world,” he said.

Biden said he had spent “several hundred hours” with European allies to urge them to continue to support Ukraine.

“They understand it fully, but they’re not looking to go to war with Russia. They’re not looking for a third world war,” he said.

No peace talks

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Wednesday that new weapons deliveries to Ukraine would deepen the conflict, and that Russia saw no chance of peace talks with Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Zelenskyy, asked to define what a “just peace” meant to him during the joint press conference, said it meant “no compromises” to the “sovereignty, freedom and territorial integrity” of Ukraine.  

A pessimistic message on peace prospects is also coming out of the White House. Moscow has shown no intention in engaging in serious negotiations and Biden will not push for Ukraine to negotiate an ending to the war Russia started, said the senior administration official.

The official said Biden would instead “work with Congress and with our allies to put Ukraine in the best possible position on the battlefield, so that when the time is right they are in the best possible position at the negotiating table.”

Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Nepal’s Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered the release, due to his age, of Charles Sobhraj, a French national known as “the serpent” who police say is responsible for a string of murders in the 1970s and 1980s.

Sobhraj, 78, has been linked to the murders of over 20 young Western backpackers across Asia, usually by drugging their food or drink. He had completed 19 years of his 20-year sentence.

Known as the “bikini killer,” Thailand issued a warrant for his arrest in the mid-1970s on charges of drugging and killing six women, all wearing bikinis, on a beach at Pattaya.

He was also called “the serpent” because of his ability to disguise himself following his escape from a prison in India in the mid-1980s, where he was serving 21 years on murder charges. He was later caught and jailed there until 1997.

Last year, the BBC and Netflix NFLX.O jointly produced a TV series dramatizing his crimes called “The Serpent.”

Sobhraj returned to France after his release from India and in 2003 was arrested from a casino in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu and later charged there for murdering American backpacker Connie Jo Bronzich. He has been held in a high-security jail in Kathmandu since 2003.

On Wednesday, Supreme Court judges Sapana Pradhan Malla and Til Prasad Shrestha ordered that Sobhraj be freed and deported from Nepal, after 19 years in prison.

“The court has ordered that if there is no other reason to keep him in jail, he should be released and sent back to his country within 15 days,” the Supreme Court’s spokesperson Bimal Paudel said.

Convicts sentenced to life imprisonment in Nepal usually serve 20 years in jail.

“He had already served 95% of his jail term and should have [been] released earlier due to his age,” Sobhraj’s laywer Ram Bandhu Sharma said, adding that Sobhraj could be released from prison by Thursday.
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With shootings and threats against a princess and the prime minister it sounds like a crime drama, but for the Dutch the growing menace from drug cartels is all too real.

The top-security trial of one alleged cocaine cartel leader, Ridouan Taghi, has captivated the Netherlands in recent months and shone a light on the shadowy “Mocro Maffia.”

The busting of a Dubai-based “super cartel” linked to Taghi, which used the Dutch port of Rotterdam as a hub, has further reinforced fears the liberal country could become a so-called narco-state.

Despite being behind bars in an ultra-secure prison, Taghi has been accused of pulling the strings of what prosecutors call his “killing machine” with secret messages to henchmen outside.

Commentators say the “Marengo” trial, named after a judicial codeword for the operation that saw Taghi charged with 16 others, is unprecedented for the Netherlands.

“The consequence of the Marengo trial, and the violence that was committed afterwards, that has simply caused a huge shock,” Jan Meeus, a Dutch journalist specializing in criminal matters, told AFP.

Speaking after a recent hearing, he described it as “the ultimate test of the Dutch judicial system of the rule of law.”

Extreme violence

Three people linked to a key prosecution witness in the trial, Nabil B., have already been killed in scenes that shocked the Netherlands.

His brother was murdered in 2018, his lawyer Derk Wiersum was shot dead outside his house in 2019, and the prominent Dutch crime journalist Peter R. de Vries was killed in 2021.

Shot dead in broad daylight in central Amsterdam as he left a television studio, de Vries had said he was on the hit list of Taghi, who was arrested in Dubai in 2019.

The army is guarding the “Bunker” in Amsterdam, where Taghi is on trial, in a first for the Netherlands. Judges and prosecutors arrive for hearings inside armored cars.

Plans to spring Taghi from prison using “extreme violence” were uncovered, said Meeus. Taghi’s cousin and one of his lawyers are accused of helping him communicate with the outside world.

“The democratic rule of law is shaken and under pressure from organized crime,” Wim de Bruin, a spokesperson for the national prosecutor’s office, told AFP.

The threat has touched top levels of Dutch society.

Crown Princess Amalia, the daughter of King Willem-Alexander, was recently forced to give up plans to live in student accommodations for security reasons.

Both the 19-year-old royal and Prime Minister Mark Rutte were mentioned in messages by organized crime groups, raising fears of plans to kidnap or attack them, Dutch media reported.

Dogs

Prosecutors say the gangsters have “no respect for human life,” with members calling their victims “dogs” who must “sleep.”

Nicknamed “Mocro Maffia” because many are of Moroccan descent, the gang is notorious for both the youth and the merciless violence of its members.

The violence has forced Dutch authorities to confront their own naivety about the level of organized crime in the country, a parallel economy worth several billion dollars.

The main Dutch police union, the NPB, has sounded the alarm for several years, with its president, Jan Struijs, warning some years ago it was slowly becoming a narco-state.

Struijs told AFP that the Netherlands’ lenient policy on soft drugs was to blame.

The consumption and sale of cannabis have been decriminalized in the country, but the rest of the supply chain that stocks famed Dutch “coffeeshops” remains illegal, with gangs muscling in on them.

Tax paradise

But Marijn Schrijver, co-author of the bestselling book Mocro Maffia said that while the Netherlands’ neighbors like to blame its lax soft drug policies, “that is not the reason.”

“What we are is a tax paradise. We want to import as much as possible into the ports to transport it again, and that makes the Netherlands the perfect place logistically,” Schrijver told AFP.

The recent dismantling in Dubai of the “super-cartel,” which allegedly provided about one third of Europe’s cocaine, indicates that the kingpins may be moving out of the Netherlands.

A Taghi-linked Dutch “big fish” arrested in the Gulf emirate had reportedly formed an alliance with the leaders of Irish and Italian drug gangs.

Europol spokesperson Jan Op Gen Oorth said the “fluid and creative” networks now collaborate and have their “kingpins sitting outside of the EU jurisdiction.”

“It’s not one group against the other anymore, which makes it extremely dangerous,” he told AFP.
…

Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Belarus Monday in what some see as an attempt to pressure dictator Alexander Lukashenko into joining a ground offensive. VOA Eastern Europe Bureau Chief Myroslava Gongadze reports from the Ukrainian-Belarusian border with videographer Eugene Shynkar.
…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, praised the courage of their respective troops Tuesday as Putin’s destructive war against his neighboring country neared the 10-month mark.

Zelenskyy visited the eastern city of Bakhmut, where the two countries’ forces have engaged in some of the most intense fighting. Meeting with military personnel in a dimly lit building, he praised the “courage, resilience and strength” of Ukrainian troops as artillery boomed in the background.

Meanwhile, Putin hailed the “courage and self-denial” of his forces in Ukraine, but his statement came at a ceremony in an opulent and glittering hall at the Kremlin in Moscow.

Zelenskyy called Bakhmut, about 600 kilometers east of Kyiv, “the hottest spot on the entire front line,” but it has remained under Ukrainian control. It was not clear how he got to Bakhmut.

“Bakhmut Fortress. Our people. Unconquered by the enemy. Who with their bravery prove that we will endure and will not give up what’s ours,” he wrote on his Telegram channel.

“Since May, the occupiers have been trying to break our Bakhmut, but time goes by and Bakhmut is already breaking not only the Russian army, but also the Russian mercenaries who came to replace the wasted army of the occupiers,” he said.

At the Kremlin, Putin presented awards to the Moscow-appointed heads of four regions of Ukraine that Russia illegally annexed in September. Most countries throughout the world do not recognize Russia’s claimed takeover.

“Our country has often faced challenges and defended its sovereignty,” Putin said. “Now, Russia is again facing such challenge. Soldiers, officers and volunteers are showing outstanding examples of courage and self-denial on the front line.”

In a video address by Putin released before Tuesday’s ceremony, he praised the security personnel deployed to the four regions, saying that “people living there, Russian citizens, count on being protected by you.”

“Your duty is to do all that is needed to ensure their safety and protection of rights and freedoms,” Putin said. The regions are under attack from a Ukrainian counteroffensive, but Putin promised to reinforce units there with more equipment and personnel. Russia has never fully controlled any of the four areas that were part of his September annexation claim.

Putin also ordered Russia’s top security agency, the FSB, to boost surveillance at the country’s borders and within the country to combat new threats from abroad and traitors at home.

His comments came a day after he made a rare visit to Minsk, extolling the benefits of cooperation with neighboring ally Belarus, stoking fears in Kyiv that plans for a joint ground offensive are in the works.

Ukrainian joint forces commander Serhiy Nayev said he believed Putin’s meeting with his Belarusian counterpart would address “further aggression against Ukraine and the broader involvement of the Belarusian armed forces in the operation against Ukraine, in particular, in our opinion, also on the ground.”

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has said repeatedly he has no intention of sending his country’s troops into Ukraine, after providing Russian troops with a launching pad for the invasion in February.

Meanwhile, British authorities gave a bleak assessment of how the war is going for Russia.

About 100,000 Russian troops were “dead, injured or have deserted” since the invasion began, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said. He did not give a figure for Ukrainian casualties, but a senior U.S. military official recently said 100,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed and wounded.

Wallace told lawmakers in the House of Commons, “Not one single [Russian] operational commander then in place on February 24 [when the invasion began] is in charge now. Russia has lost significant numbers of generals and commanding officers.”

After 300 days of war, the British Defense Ministry tweeted that Ukraine has liberated about 54% of the maximum amount of extra territory Russia seized in the invasion.

Russia now controls about 18% of internationally recognized territory of Ukraine, including those parts of the Donbas and Crimea seized earlier, it said.

Fighting remained intense, with Zelenskyy’s office saying at least five civilians were killed and eight wounded in the last day, with Russian forces attacking nine southeastern areas.

Donetsk Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said 19 cities and villages in the region were shelled by Russia. Luhansk Governor Serhiy Haidai said the province was on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe, telling Ukrainian television that residents “are living in basements without heating, food or medication” and have to burn furniture to keep themselves warm.

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 

 
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Russia’s government is trying to shut the Moscow Helsinki Group, one of the country’s oldest human rights organizations, according to a notice on a Moscow court website seen on Tuesday. 

The group, which traces its roots to the Soviet era, produces an annual report on Russia’s human rights situation. 

Valery Borshov, co-chair of the Moscow Helsinki Group, said authorities had put forward a “nonsense” allegation that the group’s own charters barred it from defending human rights outside the capital — something it has always openly done. 

Since invading Ukraine in February, Russian President Vladimir Putin has accelerated a drive to suppress dissenting views, whether from independent media, non-governmental rights groups or political opponents. 

This month, opposition politician Ilya Yashin was handed eight-and-a-half years in prison for spreading “false information” about the army by highlighting reports of atrocities by Russian soldiers in Bucha near Kyiv — which Russia says are fabricated by the West. 

And a year ago, courts closed Russia’s Memorial Human Rights Center and its sister organization Memorial International, known for chronicling and keeping alive the memory of Stalin-era crimes. 

The Moscow Helsinki Group was founded in 1976 by Soviet dissident scientists and human rights activists to monitor the Soviet Union’s compliance with the Helsinki Accords, an East-West pact meant to promote detente at the height of the Cold war. 

In 2012, it renounced foreign funding in order to avoid being labeled a “foreign agent” under a law designed to make life hard for organizations that receive money from abroad. 

Borshov said Russian authorities were deliberately destroying the most respected human rights organizations: “The Moscow Helsinki Group is the oldest human rights organization in the country, so the fact that the authorities want to liquidate us does not surprise me at all.” 

Putin has his own Human Rights Council, a body that critics say has enabled him to pay lip service to civic freedoms while increasing repression. 

Last month, shortly before his annual meeting with the Council, he removed 10 of its members and brought in four new ones including a pro-war blogger-correspondent.

 
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Nurses in Britain went on strike Tuesday for the second time in a week as they seek better pay to keep up with soaring living costs.

The strike involves up to 100,000 nurses from the Royal College of Nursing Union, which said it would give the government 48 hours after Tuesday to respond to its demands or face another strike next month.

The union is asking for a raise that puts pay 5 perecent above inflation, a figure the government says it cannot afford.

The strike comes as other sectors prepare their own actions in coming weeks as they seek to resolve pay disputes.

Ambulance crews are due to go on strike Wednesday. Railway staff, passport officers and postal workers also plan stoppages.

Nurses also walked out last Thursday causing the cancellation of some treatments.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France Presse and Reuters
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A court in Germany convicted a 97-year-old woman Tuesday for her role in the murder of more than 10,000 people at the Stutthof Nazi concentration camp during World War II.

The Itzehoe state court sentenced Irmgard Furchner to a two-year suspended sentence, according to German media.

She was accused of aiding and abetting leaders of the camp in the systematic killing of people imprisoned between 1943 and 1945.

Defense lawyers argued the prosecution’s evidence did not prove beyond doubt that Furchner knew about the killings.  In a closing statement, she said she was sorry and regretted being at Stuffhof.

An estimated 65,000 people died at the camp near Gdansk in present-day Poland.

The trial could be one of the last in Germany for World War II crimes.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.  
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Despite pressure from Western countries, India has remained steadfast in its partnership with Russia, refusing to condemn the war in Ukraine and not joining Western sanctions against Moscow. However, analysts say, this has not affected, nor is it likely to affect, India’s growing ties with the United States. 

On a visit to Moscow last month, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said New Delhi will boost economic ties with its Cold War ally.     

“For us, Russia has been a steady and time-tested partner and, as I said, any objective evaluation of our relationship over many decades would confirm that it has served both our countries very, very well,” he said.     

New Delhi has not joined Western sanctions imposed on Russia and has abstained from United Nations resolutions condemning Moscow over its aggression.     

Analysts say with India’s military heavily dependent on tanks, fighter jets and other equipment of Russian origin, it could not afford to isolate Moscow, particularly at a time when tensions with China are running high with both armies massed for a third winter along their disputed Himalayan border.     

“If your soldiers are facing the Chinese, you can’t really take on the one country that is supplying you weapons. That defense relationship India shares with Russia made India choose a more pragmatic engagement,” said Harsh Pant, Vice President for Studies and Foreign policy at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi.    

Rebuffing calls by Western leaders to not buy Russian crude, India increased its purchases of oil, coal and fertilizers from Moscow. From less than one percent before the war began, Russia became a top supplier to New Delhi of oil by the year’s end. Indian officials said that buying oil from Moscow was to the country’s advantage and it would continue to do so.     

India also sent a contingent to participate in Russia’s large-scale Vostok military exercises alongside China and several other countries in August.    

“There are transactional sides to the India-Russia relationship that are important for both, such as their energy and defense relationship, and India will take decisions in its national interests,” said Sreeram Chaulia, Dean of the Jindal School of International Affairs.   

However, the escalation in the Ukraine conflict is causing concern in New Delhi. In September, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Russian President Vladimir Putin in a meeting on the sidelines of a regional summit in Uzbekistan that “this is not an era of war.” He pointed out that the world was facing challenges, including food and energy shortages that were particularly affecting developing countries.     

In a recent phone call between the two leaders, Modi again called for diplomacy and dialogue to end the conflict, according to the Indian foreign ministry. Significantly, an annual summit that is held regularly between the Russian and Indian leaders has not been scheduled this year.     

“India feels that a lot of things that Russians are doing at the moment, perhaps are unwarranted — the kind of strikes on civilians and the energy sector. So there has been some negative response to what Russia is doing,” according to Pant. However, he added that public condemnation of Russia is not going to happen because “India feels that there are multiple causes for this conflict, therefore political dialogue is the only way forward.”  

Some have feared India’s neutral stance on Russia will strain ties with the United States – it is the only partner in the Quad alliance that consists of India, U.S., Japan and Australia, not to have sanctioned Russia. Critics said India’s huge purchases of Russian oil were undermining Western efforts to punish Russia for its aggression. But that did not happen as both countries stepped up their strategic partnership to counter an expansionist China.       

“Today we are positioning the U.S. and Indian militaries to operate and coordinate closely together across all domains and increasingly across the wider Indo-Pacific,” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in April during a meeting with Indian foreign and defense ministers in New Delhi.     

In September, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the India-U.S. relationship “simply one of the most consequential in the world,” at a joint news conference with his Indian counterpart.     

Indian and U.S. armies held exercises close to India’s border with China last month. While these were part of regular annual drills held by the two armies, the location was considered significant.     

“The rise of China is one of the most powerful forces of our times and that has certainly consolidated this consensus that India and America would have to work together; there is no other option,” according to Pant. He said the partnership is important for both sides. “Without India there is no Indo-Pacific and I think America realizes the value of India as a partner, and India realizes the value of Washington at a time of this turbulence on its periphery.”     

Analysts say India wants to help in negotiating a way out of the Ukraine conflict, pointing out that it is taking a punishing toll on the global economy. “India, as a close partner of Russia, and also of the West, wants to be a bridge builder,” according to Chaulia. “There are already behind-the-scenes talks and India is hoping to play a constructive role in reducing the differences between the warring parties so that at least the armed hostilities stop.”   
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Despite pressure from Western countries, India has remained steadfast in its partnership with Russia, refusing to condemn the war in Ukraine and not joining Western sanctions against Moscow. However, as Anjana Pasricha reports from New Delhi, this has not affected its growing ties with the United States. Videographer: Darshan Singh
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Vast undersea natural gas resources and the right to drill in waters off the coast of Egypt and Libya are prompting recriminations between regional governments after economic interests led Egypt to unilaterally delineate its maritime border with Libya last week.

A decision by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to draw his country’s maritime border with Libya drew protests from the Foreign Ministry of Libya’s Tripoli-based Government of National Unity over the weekend, in addition to protests from the prime minister of Libya’s rival government backed by the country’s parliament.

The unity government’s ally, Turkey, reportedly called on both countries Sunday to negotiate a maritime border agreement to resolve the conflict.

Egyptian political sociologist Said Sadek told VOA that it is not clear if Egypt made the right decision by drawing its border, but he said important economic interests are at play, and Cairo can’t afford to wait for Libya to become a stable country again.

“I think for the time being, each country has to look out for its own vested interests,” Sadek said. “Taking into consideration that Libya has been very divided since the fall of [former leader] Moammar Gadhafi [n 2011], and it doesn’t seem that there is agreement over [the date of an] election [and] when there will be stability. Egypt can’t afford to not exploit its own natural resources until others resolve their own situation.”

Presidential elections in Libya, originally scheduled for December 2021 were postponed indefinitely, leaving the country in political limbo with two governments supported by rival Libyan and international parties.

Khattar Abou Diab, who teaches political science at the University of Paris, told VOA that the “vast undersea gas resources in the East Mediterranean” have put Egypt at loggerheads with both the Tripoli-based Libyan government and Turkey, which supports it.

Abou Diab said that Egypt has been very prudent over the years not to provoke Turkey, despite its ongoing political conflict with Ankara [over Turkey’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood group], while the Libyan government of Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh in Tripoli, which Turkey backs, is exploiting the maritime issue as a chokepoint against Egypt, which does not recognize his government.

Abou Diab argued that it is “probable that negotiations between Egypt and Turkey will intensify in the coming year, given that both countries have major interests in Libya, both strategic and economic.”

Paul Sullivan, a Washington-based political and energy analyst at the Atlantic Council, stressed that given “the significant natural gas reserves” in the East Mediterranean,” all the [regional] countries involved are making claims,” so it is “likely that tensions are going to build until some [sort of] general agreement is made.”
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A second person has died after a crush at a London concert venue last week, British police said Monday.

Gaby Hutchinson, 23, was working as a security guard at the O2 Brixton Academy, where Nigerian singer Asake was due to perform Thursday. Hutchinson was one of eight people hospitalized after being caught in mayhem at the venue, and died on Monday, the Metropolitan Police force said.

Rebecca Ikumelo, 33, died on Saturday morning. A 21-year-old woman remains in critical condition. All three were in the foyer of the concert hall when they were caught up in a throng of people.

The police force said emergency services were called to reports of a large crowd and people trying to force their way into the venue.

The force said detectives were reviewing security camera and phone footage, speaking to witnesses and conducting forensic examinations as part of a “large and complex” investigation. It said it was too early to say whether any crimes were committed.

The Brixton Academy in south London is one of the city’s most famous music venues. Built as a movie theater in the 1920s, it has a capacity of just under 5,000.
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Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte apologized Monday on behalf of his government for the Netherlands’ historical role in slavery and the slave trade, despite calls for him to delay the long-awaited statement.

“Today I apologize,” Rutte said in a 20-minute speech that was greeted with silence by an invited audience at the National Archive.

Rutte went ahead with the apology even though some activist groups in the Netherlands and its former colonies had urged him to wait until July 1 of next year, the anniversary of the abolition of slavery 160 years ago. Activists consider next year the 150th anniversary because many enslaved people were forced to continue working in plantations for a decade after abolition.

“Why the rush?” Barryl Biekman, chair of the Netherlands-based National Platform for Slavery Past, asked before the prime minister’s address. Some of the groups went to court last week in a failed attempt to block the speech.

Some even went to court last week in a failed attempt to block the speech. Rutte referred to the disagreement in his remarks Monday.

“We know there is no one good moment for everybody, no right words for everybody, no right place for everybody,” he said.

He said the government would establish a fund for initiatives to help tackle the legacy of slavery in the Netherlands and its former colonies.

The Dutch government previously expressed deep regret for the nation’s historical role in slavery but stopped short of a formal apology, with Rutte once saying such a declaration could polarize society. However, a majority in parliament now supports an apology.

Rutte’s gave his speech at a time when many nations’ brutal colonial histories have received critical scrutiny because of the Black Lives Matter movement and the police killing of George Floyd, a Black man, in the U.S. city of Minneapolis on May 25, 2020.

The prime minister’s address was a response to a report published last year by a government-appointed advisory board. Its recommendations included the government’s apology and recognition that the slave trade and slavery from the 17th century until abolition “that happened directly or indirectly under Dutch authority were crimes against humanity.”

The report said that what it called institutional racism in the Netherlands “cannot be seen separately from centuries of slavery and colonialism and the ideas that have arisen in this context.”

Dutch ministers fanned out Monday to discuss the issue in Suriname and former colonies that make up the Kingdom of the Netherlands — Aruba, Curacao and Sint Maarten as well as three Caribbean islands that are officially special municipalities in the Netherlands, Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba.

The government has said that the year starting July 1, 2023, will be a slavery memorial year in which the country “will pause to reflect on this painful history. And on how this history still plays a negative role in the lives of many today.”

That was underscored earlier this month when an independent investigation found widespread racism at the Dutch Foreign Ministry and its diplomatic outposts around the world.

In Suriname, the small South American nation where Dutch plantation owners generated huge profits through the use of enslaved labor, activists and officials say they have not been asked for input, and that’s a reflection of a Dutch colonial attitude. What’s really needed, they say, is compensation.

The Dutch first became involved in the trans-Atlantic slave trade in the late 1500s and became a major trader in the mid-1600s. Eventually, the Dutch West India Company became the largest trans-Atlantic slave trader, said Karwan Fatah-Black, an expert in Dutch colonial history and an assistant professor at Leiden University.

Dutch cities, including the capital, Amsterdam, and port city Rotterdam already have issued apologies for the historic role of city fathers in the slave trade.

In 2018, Denmark apologized to Ghana, which it colonized from the mid-17th century to the mid-19th century. In June, King Philippe of Belgium expressed “deepest regrets” for abuses in Congo. In 1992, Pope John Paul II apologized for the church’s role in slavery. Americans have had emotionally charged fights over taking down statues of slaveholders in the South.
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