Ben Ferencz, the last living prosecutor from the Nuremberg trials, who tried Nazis for genocidal war crimes and was among the first outside witnesses to document the atrocities of Nazi labor and concentration camps, has died. He turned 103 in March.

Ferencz died Friday evening in Boynton Beach, Florida, according to St. John’s University law professor John Barrett, who runs a blog about the Nuremberg trials. The death also was confirmed by the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington.

“Today the world lost a leader in the quest for justice for victims of genocide and related crimes,” the museum tweeted.

Born in Transylvania in 1920, Ferencz immigrated as a very young boy with his parents to New York to escape rampant antisemitism. After graduating from Harvard Law School, Ferencz joined the U.S. Army in time to take part in the Normandy invasion during World War II. Using his legal background, he became an investigator of Nazi war crimes against U.S. soldiers as part of a new War Crimes Section of the Judge Advocate’s Office.

When U.S. intelligence reports described soldiers encountering large groups of starving people in Nazi camps watched over by SS guards, Ferencz followed up with visits, first at the Ohrdruf labor camp in Germany and then at the notorious Buchenwald concentration camp. At those camps and later others, he found bodies “piled up like cordwood” and “helpless skeletons with diarrhea, dysentery, typhus, TB, pneumonia, and other ailments, retching in their louse ridden bunks or on the ground with only their pathetic eyes pleading for help,” Ferencz wrote in an account of his life.

“The Buchenwald concentration camp was a charnel house of indescribable horrors,” Ferencz wrote. “There is no doubt that I was indelibly traumatized by my experiences as a war crimes investigator of Nazi extermination centers. I still try not to talk or think about the details.”

At one point toward the end of the war, Ferencz was sent to Adolf Hitler’s mountain retreat in the Bavarian Alps to search for incriminating documents but came back empty-handed.

After the war, Ferencz was honorably discharged from the U.S. Army and returned to New York to begin practicing law. But that was short-lived. Because of his experience as a war crimes investigator, he was recruited to help prosecute Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg trials, which had begun under the leadership of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson. Before leaving for Germany, he married his childhood sweetheart, Gertrude.

At the age of 27, with no previous trial experience, Ferencz became chief prosecutor for a 1947 case in which 22 former commanders were charged with murdering more than 1 million Jews, Romani and other enemies of the Third Reich in Eastern Europe.  

Rather than depending on witnesses, Ferencz mostly relied on official German documents to make his case. All the defendants were convicted, and more than a dozen were sentenced to death by hanging even though Ferencz hadn’t asked for the death penalty.

“At the beginning of April 1948, when the long legal judgment was read, I felt vindicated,” he wrote. “Our pleas to protect humanity by the rule of law had been upheld.”

With the war crimes trials winding down, Ferencz went to work for a consortium of Jewish charitable groups to help Holocaust survivors regain properties, homes, businesses, art works, Torah scrolls, and other Jewish religious items that had been confiscated from them by the Nazis. He also later assisted in negotiations that would lead to compensation to the Nazi victims.

In later decades, Ferencz championed the creation of an international court that could prosecute any government’s leaders for war crimes. Those dreams were realized in 2002 with establishment of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, though its effectiveness has been limited by the failure of countries like the United States to participate.

Ferencz is survived by a son and three daughters. His wife died in 2019.
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A missile fired from Ukrainian-held territory was shot down over the Black Sea town of Feodosia in Russian-controlled Crimea, the Moscow-installed head of Crimea’s administration said Saturday.
Russia’s campaign to “severely degrade” Ukraine’s energy system this winter has probably failed, Britain’s Defense Ministry said in a post on Twitter Saturday.
Thirty-one children “kidnapped by the Russians from Kherson and Kharkiv regions” are back in Ukraine after being separated from their parents for several months.

One day after 31 children were returned to Ukraine, the head of Presidential Office of Ukraine, Andriy Yermak, emphasized in a phone call with Amal Clooney, a prominent human rights lawyer, the importance of returning all the deported children to Ukraine.

Yermak and Clooney, co-founder of the Clooney Foundation for Justice, discussed protecting the rights of Ukrainian children and holding Russia accountable for crimes committed against them, according to the official website of the president of Ukraine.

Clooney, who specializes in international criminal law and human rights issues, has addressed the United Nations Security Council calling for justice as evidence of the crimes and atrocities allegedly committed by the Russian military began emerging weeks after the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

On behalf of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Yermak thanked Clooney.

“People in Ukraine know about your support and appreciate it a lot. Many people heard your speech and everything you said about the war and Ukrainians. This is extremely important indeed,” Yermak said, according to the president’s website.

Clooney reiterated her support for Ukraine and Ukrainians, adding that she and her foundation colleagues remain committed to their work to promote accountability and deliver justice for victims of international crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine.

Kyiv says thousands taken

Kyiv estimates nearly 19,500 children have been taken to Russia in what Ukraine condemns as illegal deportations since Moscow invaded in February of last year. Moscow claims the children were transported away for their own safety.

Earlier Saturday, the head of a humanitarian group said 31 children were reunited with their families in Ukraine after what he described as was one of the group’s most difficult operations to return children from Russia, where they had been taken during the war.

So far, the Save Ukraine humanitarian organization says it has undertaken five missions to return Ukrainian children to their families. The group has helped with the transportation and planning needed to help parents bring their children back.

Mykola Kuleba, the head of Save Ukraine and Ukraine’s former commissioner for children’s rights, told reporters no one in Russia was trying to find the children’s parents.

Missile downed over Crimea

A missile fired from Ukrainian-held territory was shot down over the Black Sea town of Feodosia in Russian-controlled Crimea, the Moscow-installed head of Crimea’s administration said Saturday.

“A missile launched from Ukraine was shot down over Feodosia,” Sergei Aksyonov said on Telegram, without providing any detail on the kind of projectile in question.

Feodosia, located in the southeastern part of Crimea, is almost 300 kilometers from the nearest Ukrainian-held area. Kyiv did not comment Saturday, and it is not publicly known to possess missiles with that range. U.S.-supplied HIMARS rockets used by Ukraine have a range of 80 kilometers.

Reuters said it could not immediately verify the reports and that it was unclear how Ukraine could have attempted such a strike.

Kramatorsk memorial

Ukrainians placed flowers at a small memorial Saturday to the 61 people killed a year ago when a Russian missile struck the transportation hub as about 4,000 people gathered there to board evacuation trains. Experts said the Tochka-U missile was armed with cluster munitions. More than 160 people were injured.

“What is there to say? My close friend and her daughter and their dog died. What more can be said?” 67-year-old Tetiana Syshchenko told Agence France-Presse, tearing up.

She said she narrowly avoided being killed in the blast.

Residents arrived a few at a time to approach the small plaque topped with flowers and children’s toys at the station.

Russia denied responsibility for the attack.

Classified documents leaked

The U.S. Justice Department said Friday it has begun an investigation into the leak of several classified U.S. military documents that have been posted on social media.

“We have been in communication with the Department of Defense related to this matter and have begun an investigation. We decline further comment,” a Justice Department spokesperson said Friday.

A new batch of classified documents that appear to detail U.S. national security secrets from Ukraine to the Middle East to China surfaced on social media sites Friday, The New York Times reported.

Russia or pro-Russian elements are likely behind an earlier leak of several classified U.S. military documents posted on social media that offer a skewed, month-old snapshot of the war in Ukraine, three U.S. officials told Reuters Friday.

Tatiana Vorozhko of VOA’s Ukraine Service contributed to this report. Some material in this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Millions of Christians around the world are celebrating Easter Sunday, the most holy day on the Christian calendar, commemorating Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead.

At the Vatican, Pope Francis is set to deliver his twice-annual blessing, known by its Latin name “Urbi et Orbi” — “to the city and the world” — from St. Peter’s Basilica.

During the blessing, which will begin at noon on the basilica’s outdoor central balcony, the Roman Catholic leader will address Christians around the world.

Last year, the pope made a plea for an end to the “senseless” war in Ukraine, a conflict that at the time had been less than 2 months old. He also called for peace in other parts of the world plagued by armed conflict, including Syria and Iraq.

The pope, who is recovering from bronchitis, followed his doctor’s advice and skipped the traditional Good Friday nighttime procession at the Colosseum, which usually lasts more than two hours.

Traditions return after pandemic

In some parts of the world, Easter Week traditions are returning after a three-year hiatus because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Thousands of residents in eastern Indonesia held Mass in the Flores Island town of Larantuka for Good Friday and later attended a night parade to mourn the death of Jesus.

In the Philippines, Good Friday traditions also returned after a three-year absence. An estimated 15,000 people in villages north of Manila watched pilgrims flog themselves in displays of religious devotion.

Christians commemorate Good Friday as the day Jesus died on the cross.

Faithful travel to holy sites

In Jerusalem, Christian faithful have been making pilgrimages to holy sites, including the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the site where they believe Jesus was crucified and rose from the dead.

On Palm Sunday — a week before Easter — thousands of worshipers carrying palm fronds and olive branches marched from the top of the Mount of Olives to Jerusalem’s historic Old City, commemorating Jesus’s entry into the city.

Jerusalem is home to Christian, Jewish and Muslim holy sites. This year, Easter coincides with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and the Jewish festival of Passover.

In Washington, the White House is planning its annual Easter egg roll. About 30,000 people, most of them children, are expected to participate on Monday in the festivities, which date back to 1878.

At the event, first lady Jill Biden will teach children about farming, healthy eating and exercise, according to the White House.

Christians worldwide celebrate Easter by going to church and gathering with family and friends.

The day marks the end of Holy Week, the church’s most solemn week, which begins with Palm Sunday, commemorating Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem, and includes Holy Thursday, his last supper with disciples; Good Friday, his crucifixion; and Easter Sunday, his resurrection.

Some information in this report came from the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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Silvio Berlusconi’s doctor, who is treating him for a lung infection, said Saturday that the former Italian premier is responding well to treatment in an intensive care unit at a Milan hospital, an Italian news agency reported.

Alberto Zangrillo, who also heads the ICU at San Raffaele hospital where the Italian media mogul was admitted on Wednesday, said Berlusconi “is used to responding with his best” and that despite the “grave illness in a truly difficult situation, he’s responding well to the treatments,” ANSA reported.

Zangrillo revealed earlier in the week that Berlusconi, 86, has had a chronic form of leukemia for some time.

On Saturday, Berlusconi was visited by a longtime advisor, Gianni Letta, who said, “I found him better than what I thought” and eager to rebound.

“You know how every time he sets an aim, he reaches it,” Letta told reporters outside the hospital.

In remarks to reporters, Zangrillo referred to the infection as a “complication,” given Berlusconi’s chronic leukemia. Earlier in the week, Berlusconi’s doctors said they were treating his lung infection and giving him medicine to “restore preexisting clinical conditions” given the leukemia.

Berlusconi also has a history of heart problems and, in 2020, he was hospitalized with COVID-19 and pneumonia.
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Pope Francis led the world’s Roman Catholics into Easter at a Saturday night vigil Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, decrying the “icy winds of war” and other injustices.

The 86-year-old Francis skipped an outdoor event on Friday night because of unseasonably cold temperatures in Rome. His doctors ordered prudence after he was hospitalized last week for bronchitis.

Francis appeared to be well during the Easter Vigil service, during which he baptized eight adult converts to Catholicism.

After Francis started the service in the rear of the church with the traditional lighting of a large paschal candle, he was taken in a wheelchair to the front to preside at the Mass.

Easter is the most important day in the Christian liturgical calendar because it commemorates the day the Bible says Jesus rose from the dead.

In his homily, read before about 8,000 people in Christendom’s largest church, Francis spoke of the bitterness, dismay and disillusionment many feel today.

“We may feel helpless and discouraged before the power of evil, the conflicts that tear relationships apart, the attitudes of calculation and indifference that seem to prevail in society, the cancer of corruption, the spread of injustice, the icy winds of war,” he said.

Francis has called for an end to all wars, and since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, he has repeatedly referred to Ukraine and its people as being “martyred.”

Reading his homily in a strong, confident voice, Francis said that even when people felt the wellspring of hope had dried up, it was important not to be frozen in a sense of defeat but to seek an “interior resurrection” with God’s help.

Francis concludes Holy Week celebrations on Sunday by presiding at an Easter Mass in St. Peter’s Square and then delivering his twice-annual “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city and the world) blessing and message from the central external balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica.
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World Athletics on Saturday released details of a new event, the marathon race walk mixed relay, to be staged at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. 

It takes the place of the men’s 50km race walk, which first appeared at the 1932 Olympics, but which has been scrapped in the pursuit of gender equality. 

The new mixed relay will feature 25 teams, each comprising one male and one female athlete, who will alternate to complete the marathon distance (42.195km) in four legs. 

“This format is designed to be innovative, dynamic and unpredictable,” said World Athletics CEO Jon Ridgeon. 

“We believe it will be easily understood by fans, will feature exciting competition and, importantly, it will ensure full gender equality across the Olympic track and field program for the first time,” he added. 

The relay will be held on the same course as the individual 20km race walking events, at the foot of the Eiffel Tower in central Paris. 

The team qualification “pathway” will be published shortly, World Athletics said. 

The 48-event athletics program at Paris 2024 is now perfectly balanced with 23 for both men and women with two mixed events, the 4x400m and walk marathon relay. 

Next year’s Games also include breakdancing for the first time on the Olympic program. 
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Joe Blewitt is just about the busiest man in Ballina. His phone rings constantly with calls from locals and the world’s media as he prepares to welcome a relative — U.S. President Joe Biden. 

Biden is scheduled to travel to Ireland next week, with a stop in Ballina, the town from which one of his great-great grandfathers left for the United States in 1850. Blewitt, a distant cousin who first met Biden when he came to town as vice president in 2016, said the U.S. leader pledged to return once he’d won the presidency. 

“He said, ‘I’m going to come back into Ballina.’ And sure to God he’s going to come back into Ballina,” Blewitt said. “His Irish roots are really deep in his heart.” 

The 43-year-old plumber was among Biden relations invited to the White House for St. Patrick’s Day last month. He says it was a “surreal” experience that included a half-hour private meeting with the president. 

“He’s a people person. He loves meeting the Irish people,” said Blewitt, who shares Biden’s high forehead — he says people joke that he looks like the president “from the mouth up.” 

“The Irish people love him back.” 

Buildings are getting a new coat of paint and American flags are being hung from shopfronts in Ballina, a bustling agricultural town of about 10,000 at the mouth of the River Moy in western Ireland that proclaims itself the nation’s “salmon capital.” 

There’s already a mural of a beaming Biden, erected in 2020 in the center of town. Many people from Ballina and the surrounding County Mayo moved to Pennsylvania in the 19th century. Ballina is twinned with Scranton, Biden’s hometown. 

“I wouldn’t think there’s a family in Ballina that doesn’t have someone, some connection with the States,” said Anthony Heffernan, owner of Heffernan’s Fine Foods, where Biden had lunch with his local relatives during his 2016 visit. 

“It was a fantastic day for Ballina,” Heffernan recalled. 

“He was very keen to talk about the town — how it was, and how it is now. He was really connected with the area.” 

The White House says Biden will visit Belfast, Northern Ireland, on Tuesday and Wednesday to mark 25 years since the Good Friday peace accord, before heading south to the Republic of Ireland, where he will address the Dublin parliament. In Ballina, he’s due to deliver a speech Friday in front of the 19th-century cathedral, which local lore says was built partly using bricks supplied by his great-great-great grandfather, Edward Blewitt, a brickmaker and civil engineer. 

The Irish Family History Center says Biden “is among the most ‘Irish’ of all U.S. Presidents” — 10 of his 16 great-great grandparents were from the Emerald Isle. All of them left for the U.S. during the Great Famine of the mid-19th century, which killed an estimated 1 million people. 

Biden also plans to visit the Cooley Peninsula in County Louth, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) from Ballina on Ireland’s east coast. His great-grandfather, James Finnegan, left the mountainous, wind-battered peninsula as a child in 1850, one of more than a million Irish people who emigrated during the famine years. 

“There’s a great sense of euphoria around the place. Everyone is asking ‘What’s happening, when’s he coming, where’s he going?'” said Andrea McKevitt, a local politician and distant Biden relative. 

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that the president would use his Irish trip to highlight “how his family history is part of that larger shared history” between the U.S. and Ireland. 

The trip is also a reminder of the central role of Irish Americans in U.S. political life. Ireland has warmly welcomed American presidents since John F. Kennedy became the first to visit in 1963. Barack Obama got a jubilant reception in 2011 when he visited the tiny hamlet of Moneygall, home to one of his great-great-great grandfathers. 

“My name is Barack Obama, of the Moneygall Obamas, and I’ve come home to find the apostrophe we lost somewhere along the way,” he joked to a crowd in Dublin. 

More than 30 million Americans — almost one in 10 — claim some Irish ancestry. Richard Johnson, senior lecturer in U.S. politics at Queen Mary University of London, said Irish Americans no longer form the solidly Democrat voting bloc of decades gone by, but it’s still “good politics domestically for Americans to emphasize their Irish roots.” 

“One of the reasons Irish identity resonates so much with Americans is that U.S. identity is based in part on the notion that the United States broke free from the British Empire and set its own course,” he said. “There is a kind of echo of that story that can be found in the Irish experience. It makes it feel like the Irish have shared a common experience of breaking out of British rule that I think is attractive to Americans.” 

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said Biden “has always been a friend of Ireland,” and the visit would be “an opportunity to welcome a great Irish-American president home.” 

In Ballina, Blewitt said the town is getting ready to give Biden a rousing welcome. 

“The streets will be packed,” he said. “It’ll be like another St. Patrick’s Day.”
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Russia lost elections to three United Nations bodies this week, a sign that opposition to its invasion of Ukraine over a year ago remains strong.

The votes in the 54-member U.N. Economic and Social Council follow approval of six non-binding resolutions against Russia by the 193-member U.N. General Assembly. The latest — on Feb. 23, the eve of the first anniversary of the invasion — called for Moscow to end hostilities and withdraw its forces and was adopted by a vote of 141-7 with 32 abstentions.

In the ECOSOC votes, Russia was overwhelmingly defeated by Romania for a seat on the Commission on the Status of Women. It lost to Estonia to be a member of the executive board of the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF. And it was defeated by Armenia and the Czech Republic in secret ballot votes for membership on the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said after Wednesday’s votes, “This is a clear signal from ECOSOC members that no country should hold positions on critical U.N. bodies when they are in flagrant violation of the U.N. Charter.”

In the voting for members of 14 commissions, boards and expert groups that ECOSOC oversees, Russia was elected to the Commission for Social Development by acclamation – which the United States and the United Kingdom dissociated their countries from, saying Russia’s invasion violates international law and Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

Russia was also elected by acclamation to the Intergovernmental Working Group of Experts on International Standards of Accounting and Reporting.
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Leaked Western documents with information about the war in Ukraine appear to have been doctored by Russia to minimize their own losses and exaggerate Ukraine’s. VOA’s Laurel Bowman reports.
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A British Iranian man who has been on a hunger strike outside the British Foreign Ministry building in London for 44 days says he is ready to continue his protest for 100 days.

Vahid Beheshti told Forbes that he is preparing to more than double the length of his strike, despite not knowing “how long my physical body can cooperate with me.”

Beheshti is on a hunger strike to pressure the British government to add the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to the country’s list of terrorist organizations.

He met with British Security Minister Tom Tugendhat on March 27 but told Forbes he has yet to hear anything from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

Beheshti, who began his strike in February, has lost more than 13 kilograms (29 pounds).

The Guardian newspaper reported that Beheshti, 44, had been a friend of the journalist and activist Ruhollah Zam, who was abducted by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iraq. Zam was executed while imprisoned in Iran in 2020.
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Classified U.S. and NATO planning documents related to the war in Ukraine have appeared on social media, prompting officials in Washington to scramble to have them removed from Twitter and other online platforms.

Officials in Kyiv, meanwhile, cautioned that the documents were altered by the Russians, in part to cover up the true extent of casualties suffered by Moscow’s forces and inflate the number of Ukrainians they killed.

Photographs of documents labeled “top secret” and “secret,” including some containing folds and creases, were posted on Twitter and Telegram in recent days, according to officials and media reports. The files include charts and maps indicating locations of military forces and weaponry in Ukraine as of March 1 and appear to have been disseminated online as soon as that day.

“The Department of Defense is actively reviewing the matter and has made a formal referral to the Department of Justice for investigation,” Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh said in a terse statement Friday night. 

The disclosure was the first public intelligence breakthrough for Russia since it invaded Ukraine in late February 2022, according to The New York Times, which initially reported the leak Thursday.

The Times on Friday evening reported that a second batch of documents had surfaced on social media that “appear to detail American national security secrets from Ukraine to the Middle East to China.”

The first batch of documents also contain specific information about training schedules for Ukrainian combat brigades and expenditure rates for the HIMARS rocket launcher system the United States has provided ahead of Kyiv’s expected spring counteroffensive, according to media reports.

“I do not see any risks from the publication of this information, including the distorted information about the plans the General Staff of Ukraine is developing,” Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukraine’s president, told VOA’s Ukrainian Service. “They are irrelevant to what will work in a month or at a certain time when these scenarios will be implemented on the battlefield.”

Podolyak added that if the intercepted documents were wholly authentic, the Russians “would certainly not release them. You would pretend that you don’t know the plans.”

An altered chart lists Russian fatalities at 16,000 to 17,500, far below the plausible estimates of up to 200,000 killed, wounded or missing by numerous analysts and lowered from the 35,500 to 43,500 listed on an earlier leaked version. The doctored chart also lists the estimate of Ukrainian soldiers killed at 61,000 to 71,500, up from 16,000 to 17,500 in an earlier photograph of the document posted online.

“The altered numbers expose them [the Russian intelligence services] completely. And it shows that the main reason of this was to convince the Russian public that only 17,000 [Russian] soldiers died,” said Andrey Piontkovsky, senior fellow at the Institute of Modern Russia, headquartered in New York.

“This is a propaganda operation designed primarily for Russian public opinion,” Piontkovsky told VOA’s Russian Service on Friday, adding that what has been released does not contain “any detailed harmful military information.”

Some Russian military bloggers are pointing fingers in the other direction, asserting the documents were leaked by Western intelligence to mislead Russian commanders ahead of the upcoming counteroffensive by the Ukrainians.

Such a warning was posted to Telegram by the Grey Zone account, which is associated with the Russian private paramilitary force known as the Wagner Group.

More than 30 of the documents initially appeared on a Discord server on March 1 and 2, according to Aric Toler, a researcher at Bellingcat, a fact-checking and open source intelligence group based in the Netherlands. Discord is a popular voice, video and text communication service based in San Francisco.

“They were all photographed from hard copies,” as the hand of a person can be seen in the pictures, Toler told VOA on Friday.

By March 5, after they propagated to other Discord servers and the anonymous 4chan online bulletin board, a doctored document and others apparently unaltered were posted on Russian Telegram channels, according to Toler.

U.S. government officials have been requesting that social media companies delete the postings, although it is unknown when they first became aware of the leak. It is also not known how successful they have been in getting the documents deleted or how Twitter responded to the requests.

An e-mailed query from VOA on Friday to the social media platform generated an automated reply with a “poop” emoji, Twitter’s standard response recently to all media inquiries.

A number of the documents were still visible on Twitter as of Friday afternoon, with some racking up hundreds of thousands of views.

Tatiana Vorozhko and Rafael Saakyan contributed to this report.
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Editor’s note: Here is a fast take on what the international community has been up to this past week, as seen from the United Nations perch.

Taliban bans Afghan women from working for UN

The United Nations said Wednesday that it will not comply with a Taliban decree banning Afghan women from working for the organization and called on them to revoke it. Taliban officials informed the United Nations verbally on Tuesday that an existing ban on women working for humanitarian organizations has been extended to include the U.N. The U.N. is continuing to engage with the Taliban to try to get the edict reversed. In the meantime, it has instructed both female and male Afghan staff to work from home.

UN Demands Taliban Reverse Ban on Afghan Female Staff 

Q&A: Linda Thomas-Greenfield

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield spoke to VOA Monday about her recent trip to Costa Rica for the 2023 Democracy Summit and the important role of youth in government, her concerns about Russia’s and China’s influence in the region and calls for a non-U.N. international force to help Haiti.

Q&A: US UN Envoy: ‘Standing with Russia is a Losing Proposition’ 

ICC-indicted Russian official briefs Security Council

The Russian official charged alongside President Vladimir Putin by the International Criminal Court for the alleged abduction of thousands of Ukrainian children said Wednesday that Moscow is “fully open” to cooperation in the interest of the children. Maria Lvova-Belova told an informal Security Council meeting via video link that Russia is protecting children in its custody. Ukraine says more than 16,000 children have been forcibly abducted to Russia during the 13-month war. Several council members walked out in protest when Lvova-Belova made her remarks.

Russian Official Indicted by ICC Briefs UN Security Council 

Report: Enforced disappearances rife in Iraq 

A U.N. watchdog committee is urging the Iraqi government to take action to stop the practice of enforced disappearances, which has resulted in the abduction and disappearance of up to a million people in the past five decades. The U.N. Committee on Enforced Disappearances expressed “deep concern” that the practice is not criminalized and continues to be widespread and practiced with impunity.

Up to 1 Million Iraqis Are Victims of Enforced Disappearance 

Mozambique battles cholera after cyclone

The World Health Organization says Mozambique is experiencing its worst cholera outbreak in 20 years, following the devastation of Cyclone Freddy, which killed hundreds of people in Mozambique, Madagascar and Malawi in February and March. Tom Gould reports for VOA from Quelimane, Mozambique, on the outbreak. 

Mozambique Battles Cholera in Record Cyclone’s Aftermath 

In brief

— Cindy McCain took up her post as executive director of the World Food Program on Wednesday. It is a challenging time for the agency, which delivered food last year to a record 158 million people as it deals with funding shortages and unprecedented levels of global food insecurity. Since 2021, McCain has served as the U.S. ambassador to the three U.N. food and agriculture agencies in Rome. She succeeds David Beasley, who held the post from 2017 until earlier this week.

— International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Mariano Grossi went to Kaliningrad, Russia, on Wednesday, where he met with officials on his efforts to secure a demilitarized zone in and around Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. The plant has come under repeated shelling and blackouts during the war and is currently occupied by Russian troops. A team of IAEA experts is also based at the facility. Grossi met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the city of Zaporizhzhia last week.

— A new report by the World Health Organization this week said 1 in 6 people worldwide is experiencing infertility. The WHO said this shows the urgent need to increase access to affordable, high-quality fertility care for those in need. In most countries fertility treatments are largely paid out of pocket, putting the cost of starting a family beyond the reach of many.

Good news

The U.N. said Thursday that it has secured a supertanker to replace the decaying oil tanker FSO Safer, which is moored off the coast of Yemen and poses a serious environmental threat. The Nautica set sail from Zhoushan, China, this week and will arrive in Yemen in early May. A salvage company will oversee the transfer from the Safer to the Nautica of more than a million barrels of oil that the U.N. has warned for years would cause a catastrophic environmental disaster if the nearly 50-year-old Safer started leaking or exploded. Read more from our archive about the efforts to get this mission underway.

UN Buys Oil Tanker to Begin Salvage Operation Off Yemeni Coast 

Did you know?

The World Health Organization turned 75 on Friday. When the United Nations was founded in San Francisco in 1945, diplomats agreed there was a need for a body to encourage collaboration to control the spread of dangerous diseases, and the WHO was born. On April 7, 1948, the WHO’s constitution entered into force. Now that day is recognized as World Health Day. The health agency began with a focus on mass campaigns against tuberculosis, malaria, yaws, syphilis, smallpox and leprosy. When the polio vaccine was developed in 1952, the agency began work to eradicate the disease worldwide. The WHO also brings health care to refugees, displaced persons and people living in conflict zones. Most recently, the WHO has been at the forefront of coordinating the global response to the COVID-19 virus, including vaccinations.
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Russian Federal Security Service investigators have formally charged Evan Gershkovich with espionage, but The Wall Street Journal reporter denied the charges and said he was working as a journalist, Russian news agencies reported on Friday.

Russia’s Federal Security Service, the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, said on March 30 that it had detained Gershkovich in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg and had opened an espionage case against the 31-year-old for collecting what it said were state secrets about the military industrial complex.

“Gershkovich has been charged,” Interfax quoted a source as saying.

TASS reported that FSB investigators had formally charged Gershkovich with carrying out espionage in the interests of the United States but that Gershkovich had denied the charge.

“He categorically denied all the accusations and stated that he was engaged in journalistic activities in Russia,” TASS cited an unidentified source as saying.

The TASS source declined further comment citing the classified nature of the case.

Gershkovich is the first American journalist detained in Russia on espionage charges since the end of the Cold War.

The Journal has denied that Gershkovich was spying and demanded the immediate release of its “trusted and dedicated reporter.” The Journal said his arrest was “a vicious affront to a free press and should spur outrage in all free people and governments throughout the world.”

The Kremlin said that Gershkovich had been carrying out espionage “under the cover” of journalism. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has told the United States that Gershkovich was caught red handed while trying to obtain secrets.

The United States has urged Russia to release Gershkovich and cast the Russian claims of espionage as ridiculous. U.S. President Joe Biden has called for Gershkovich’s release.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has yet to comment publicly on the case.

A fluent Russian speaker born to Soviet emigres and raised in New Jersey, Gershkovich moved to Moscow in late 2017 to join the English-language Moscow Times and subsequently worked for the French national news agency Agence France-Presse.

Russia announced the start of its “special military operation” in February 2022, just as Gershkovich was in London, about to return to Russia to join The Journal’s Moscow bureau.

It was decided that he would live in London but travel to Russia frequently for reporting trips, as a correspondent accredited with the Foreign Ministry.
…

Thousands of farmers protested across Romania on Friday over the impact of Ukrainian grain imports on prices, blocking traffic and border checkpoints with tractors and trucks and urging the European Commission to intervene. 

Anger is rising among farmers in Central and Eastern Europe over a flood of cheap Ukrainian grain imports, exempt from customs fees until June 2024, which have hurt prices and sales of local producers. 

Ukraine, one of the world’s largest grain exporters, had its Black Sea ports blocked following Russia’s February 2022 invasion and found alternative shipping routes through European Union states Poland and Romania, helped by “solidarity lanes” supported by the EU. 

But millions of tons of grain — cheaper than those produced in the EU — ended up in neighboring countries, propelled by logistical bottlenecks and lesser distances. 

Polish Agriculture Minister Henryk Kowalczyk resigned from his post this week. Polish and Bulgarian farmers have also held protests. 

In the capital Bucharest, about 200 farmers protested Friday outside the European Commission’s local headquarters, carrying banners which read: “We respected EU rules, but EU ignored us,” “You can no longer pass through here” and “Stability for Romanian farmers.” 

Across the country, thousands of farmers used tractors, trucks and other machinery to block roads and borders. 

“We are talking about unfair competition in the European community,” said Nicu Vasile, the head of the league of Romanian associations of farm producers (LAPAR). 

“I know our Ukrainian colleagues also need to sell, but it is unfair competition.” 

Vasile said production costs of wheat have risen 70% on the year to 6,000 lei ($1,326) per hectare. 

The commission has estimated farmers from Poland, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Slovakia have lost 417 million euros ($455 million) overall from the inflows of cheaper Ukrainian grains. It decided to hand out compensation worth 56.3 million euros to Polish, Bulgarian and Romanian farmers, with more to come. 

“It’s a concrete measure, but the sums are small, it is true,” Romanian Farm Minister Petre Daea said Friday. The ministry will double the amount given to Romania. 

On Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he expected decisions to be announced in coming days and weeks to alleviate anger among Polish farmers. Six prime ministers in the region have asked the commission to intervene. 
…

Police have warned that armed dissident groups are planning violent attacks over the Easter holiday weekend as Northern Ireland marks 25 years since the peace accord that ended three decades of bloodshed. 

U.S. President Joe Biden is due to visit Belfast next week as Northern Ireland commemorates the signing of the Good Friday Agreement on April 10, 1998. The U.S.-brokered deal got Irish republican and British loyalist paramilitary groups to lay down their arms and setup a power-sharing government for Northern Ireland. 

The peace accord largely ended 30 years of violence, known as “the Troubles,” in which 3,600 people died, but small splinter groups mount occasional gun or bomb attacks on the security forces. 

The Police Service of Northern Ireland Assistant Chief Constable Bobby Singleton said police had received intelligence about planned violence around a parade in Londonderry on Easter Monday commemorating the 1916 Easter Rising against British rule in Ireland. 

He said there was “potential for dissidents to try and draw us in to disorder and then experience tells us where that happens, that can quite often become the platform for an attack on our officers.” 

The threat from dissidents prompted U.K. authorities last month to raise Northern Ireland’s terrorism threat level to “severe,” meaning an attack is considered highly likely. 

Police Chief Constable Simon Byrne said police officers, military personnel and prison staff, and their families, were the main targets. 

“The style of attack that we are dealing with and trying to frustrate is gun attacks and bomb attacks on these people by a small number of determined dissident terrorists,” he said Thursday. 

While the peace forged by the Good Friday Agreement has largely held, the political structures have been through multiple crises. The Northern Ireland Assembly has not sat for more than a year, after the main unionist party pulled out of the government to protest new post-Brexit trade rules for Northern Ireland. 

Under the terms of the agreement, people jailed for taking part in the violence were released, an issue that still pains families of the conflict’s victims. 

A group of relatives of Troubles victims held a sunrise ceremony Friday on a beach in County Down, south of Belfast, to reflect on the conflict and the peace. 

“It was incredible being here with all these people, Catholic and Protestant, unionist and nationalist, republican and loyalist — we have all lost people,” said Alan McBride, whose wife and father-in-law were killed by an IRA bomb in Belfast in 1993. “To look out at the sea and see the sun come up, that is the vision of the Good Friday Agreement, people standing together.” 

Later, residents from Catholic nationalist and Protestant unionist neighborhoods were due to hold a ceremony at a gate in one of the fortified “peace walls” that still divide Belfast. 
…

French President Emmanuel Macron tells Chinese President Xi Jinping to use China’s relationship with Russia to help end Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Kremlin says decision to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus was prompted by NATO expansion toward Russia.  
Swedish prosecutor investigating Nord Stream pipeline blasts in September tells Reuters “the clear main scenario” is that a state-sponsored group was responsible.  
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visits Poland, updating leaders there on the war in Ukraine and meeting with Ukrainian refugees who fled after Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Russia has recently regained some “momentum” in the battle for Bakhmut, the British Defense Ministry said Friday in its daily intelligence update on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  

The report said Russian forces have “highly likely advanced” into the town center of Bakhmut and have seized the west bank of the Bakhmutk River. The update also reported that Wagner forces and Russian Defense Ministry commanders “have paused their ongoing feud and improved co-operation.”

French President Emmanuel Macron has encouraged Chinese President Xi Jinping to use China’s relationship with Russia to help bring an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine.  

Macron told Xi as they met Thursday in Beijing that Russia’s aggression in Ukraine has harmed international stability.  

“I know I can count on you to bring back Russia to reason and everyone back to the negotiating table,” Macron said.  

Xi told journalists that “together with France, we appeal for restraint and reason” in the 14-month conflict, adding that China was seeking “a quick return to peace negotiations in the quest for a political settlement, and the building of a European architecture that is balanced and lasting.”

The Chinese leader said his government “appeals for the protection of civilians. Nuclear weapons must not be used, and nuclear war must be avoided.”

But it was unclear whether Xi might pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiate, as Macron requested, or whether the Chinese leader would speak with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who said last month that China could be a “partner” in the quest for peace.

China has proposed a multipart peace plan for Ukraine that includes a call for upholding the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, but it does not call on Russia to withdraw its forces from Ukraine.  

Ukrainian officials have said they will only engage in peace talks if Russia withdraws all its military, while Russia has insisted that Ukraine recognize areas that Russia has claimed to annex. There have been no known peace talks since last April.

Zelenskyy in Poland  

Zelenskyy visited neighboring Poland Wednesday, giving leaders there an update on the war in Ukraine and meeting with Ukrainian refugees who fled after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.  

Zelenskyy said the situation for Ukrainian forces in the eastern city of Bakhmut remains difficult and that “corresponding decisions” would have to be taken if Kyiv’s troops were at risk of being surrounded by Russian forces.  

Zelenskyy discussed the state of the war with Polish President Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, as well as international support and cooperation for Ukraine. Zelenskyy thanked Poland for what he characterized as its historic assistance to the Kyiv government.  

Duda said Russia has committed war crimes in Ukraine that must be punished.

“Today we are trying to get for Ukraine … additional guarantees, security guarantees, which will strengthen Ukraine’s military potential,” the Polish president noted.  

Poland has been a key ally for Ukraine. The U.N. refugee agency says there are 1.5 million Ukrainian refugees who have registered for temporary protection status in Poland.  

Poland also has served as a main hub for other Ukrainian partners to send in military and humanitarian aid.

Some material in this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
…

Clashes erupted in Paris next to a Left Bank brasserie favored by French President Emmanuel Macron as protesters torched garbage cans and smashed two banks during the 11th day of nationwide demonstrations against pension reform. 

The bistro La Rotonde, whose awning was set alight as protesters threw bottles and paint at police, is known in France for hosting a much-criticized celebratory dinner for Macron when he led the first round of the 2017 presidential election. 

Protests against the flagship reform of Macron’s second term, which lifts the retirement age by two years to 64, began in mid-January and have coalesced widespread anger against the president. 

Labor unions on Thursday evening called for another day of nationwide protests on April 13. 

“Strike, blockade, Macron walk away!” protesters chanted in the western city of Rennes, where police fired tear gas at protesters who threw projectiles at them and set bins on fire. 

The street protests have become increasingly violent since the government pushed the pension legislation through parliament without a final vote because of a lack of support among lawmakers. 

But police estimates indicate the number of people taking part may be falling. 

On Thursday, black-clad anarchists smashed the windows of two banks and engaged riot police in cat-and-mouse skirmishes along the route of the street protest. 

One police officer briefly lost consciousness after being struck on the helmet by a rock.  

A total of 77 police force members were injured, and 31 people were arrested as of early evening in Paris, police said. 

Polls show a wide majority of voters oppose the pension legislation. But a source close to Macron said that was not what mattered. 

“If the role of a president of the republic is to make decisions according to public opinion, there is no need to have elections,” the source said. “Being president is to assume choices that may be unpopular at a given time.” 

‘Withdraw the reform’ 

Union leaders and protesters said the only way out of the crisis was for the legislation to be scrapped, an option that the government has repeatedly rejected.  

“There is no other solution than withdrawing the reform,” the new leader of the hard-line CGT union, Sophie Binet, said at the start of the Paris rally. 

The number of people striking in schools and disrupting train traffic was down on Thursday from a week earlier. On the streets, the CGT said about 400,000 people joined the protest in Paris, down from 450,000 the week before. The Interior Ministry said 57,000 people attended in Paris, down sharply from the 93,000 reported a week earlier. 

Nationwide, 570,000 people marched against the reform on Thursday, down from 740,000 a week earlier. 

The numbers could bring some hope to officials who say they believe the rallies may be losing steam.  

Laurent Berger, leader of the moderate CFDT union, told France 5 television that the figures were hefty for an 11th day of protests. 

“The real issue is that there is widespread resentment and social anger,” Berger said, adding he condemned the violence. 

A crucial date on the issue looms on April 14, when the Constitutional Council delivers its verdict on the pension bill. Constitutional experts say the council is unlikely to strike the legislation down, which may help weaken protests. 

“Mobilization will continue, one way or another. … It’s a long-distance race,” the CGT’s Binet said. 

At the Paris rally, nurse Soraya Bouadouia said, “I will be here until the withdrawal of the pension reform, which is a completely unacceptable reform.” 

With Macron on an official trip to Beijing, one protester held a banner that read: “Macron resign. You will hear us all the way to China.”
…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday wrapped up his first official visit to Poland since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of his country. On the one-day visit, the Ukrainian leader thanked his Polish hosts for standing – in Zelenskyy’s words – “shoulder to shoulder” with Ukraine, in what he described as a “historic relationship.” VOA Eastern Europe bureau chief Myroslava Gongadze reports from Warsaw. Camera: Daniil Batushchak
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Fierce battles are raging on Ukraine’s front lines as fighting between occupying Russian forces and Ukrainian government troops appears to be escalating with the arrival of spring. VOA’s Heather Murdock reports from Torske in eastern Ukraine. Camera: Yan Boechat.
…

European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen has warned China President Xi Jinping not to supply arms to Russia, and she discussed a path to peace in Ukraine during talks Thursday in Beijing.

Von der Leyen traveled to China this week with French President Emmanuel Macron to show a united European front. Macron took part Wednesday and Thursday for the fifth meeting of the China-France Business Council. He later joined Von der Leyen for tri-lateral talks with Xi.

Speaking to reporters following her bilateral meeting, Von der Leyen said she raised the topic of Xi having a conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy regarding a peace plan. She said Xi expressed his willingness to speak with Zelenskyy “when [the] conditions and time are right.”

­­­­Last week, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said he had a similar discussion with Xi, who at that time also expressed interest in the idea. Von der Leyen said she viewed his reiteration as a positive sign.

But the EU leader said she also warned China against providing military equipment directly or indirectly to Russia because it would be against international law and “would significantly harm our relationship.”

Von der Leyen raised the issue of Taiwan and the recent elevated tensions between it and the mainland. Beijing considers the democratically ruled island to be part of its territory, even though Taiwan has been self-governed since the end of China’s civil war in 1949.

China has vowed to bring the island under its control by any means necessary, including a military takeover.

The European Commission president said stability in the Taiwan Straits is of paramount importance and no one should unilaterally change the status quo in the region by force.

Von der Leyen said she expressed the EU’s “deep concern” about the human rights situation in China, particularly with the treatment of the ethnic Uyghur population there. She said the issue must be discussed and she welcomed the resumption of the EU-China human rights dialogue.

After her news briefing, Von der Leyen joined Macron and Xi for tri-lateral talks. Macron once again urged Xi to use his influence with Russia to end the conflict with Ukraine. Regarding Europe-China relations, Von der Leyen said decoupling from China was not “a viable or desirable strategy.”

Xi told the two leaders, “China and Europe should uphold dialogue and cooperation, maintain world peace and stability, promote common development and prosperity, advance human civilization and join hands to tackle global challenges.”

Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters and the Agence France-Presse.
…

New developments:

Kremlin says decision to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus was prompted by NATO expansion toward Russia
Swedish prosecutor investigating Nord Stream pipeline blasts in September tells Reuters “the clear main scenario” is that a state sponsored group was responsible
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visits Poland, updating leaders there on the war in Ukraine and meeting with Ukrainian refugees who fled after Russia’s full-scale invasion.

 

French President Emmanuel Macron encouraged Chinese President Xi Jinping to use China’s relationship with Russia to help bring an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Macron told Xi as they met Thursday in Beijing that Russia’s aggression in Ukraine has harmed international stability.

“I know I can count on you to bring back Russia to reason and everyone back to the negotiating table,” Macron said.

China has proposed a multi-part peace plan for Ukraine that includes a call for upholding the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, but it does not call on Russia to withdraw its forces from Ukraine.

Ukrainian officials have said they will only engage in peace talks if Russia withdraws all its military, while Russia has insisted that Ukraine recognize areas that Russia has claimed to annex.

Zelenskyy in Poland

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited neighboring Poland Wednesday, giving leaders there an update on the war in Ukraine and meeting with Ukrainian refugees who fled after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Zelenskyy said the situation for Ukrainian forces in the eastern city of Bakhmut remains difficult and that “corresponding decisions” would have to be taken if Kyiv’s troops were at risk of being surrounded by Russian forces.

Zelenskyy discussed the state of the war with Polish President Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, as well as international support and cooperation for Ukraine. Zelenskyy thanked Poland for what he characterized as its historic assistance to the Kyiv government.

Duda said Russia has committed war crimes in Ukraine that must be punished.

“Today we are trying to get for Ukraine … additional guarantees, security guarantees, which will strengthen Ukraine’s military potential,” the Polish president noted.

Poland has been a key ally for Ukraine. The U.N. refugee agency says there are 1.5 million Ukrainian refugees who have registered for temporary protection status in Poland.

Poland also has served as a main hub for other Ukrainian partners to send in military and humanitarian aid.

Some material in this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
…

It was an international summit of democracies, but several democratic countries in Asia and Africa were absent; some were not invited and some turned down the invitation. 

Pakistan declined to attend, giving no excuse except that Islamabad will engage Washington, a close ally, bilaterally.

The real reason for Pakistan’s absence, experts say, was not about democracy but about China. 

“This was a fairly straightforward diplomatic decision,” Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia institute at the Wilson Center, told VOA.

“China was not invited, and Taiwan was. Pakistan, out of deference to its Chinese ally, would not want to attend a forum where Taiwan was present,” he said.

The only nuclear-armed, majority-Muslim country in the world, Pakistan has extensive economic and political ties with the United States and China. 

In 2020, the United States was the top export country for Pakistani products — over $4.1 billion — while Pakistan imported products worth more than $12.4 billion from China, more than from any other country, according to the World Bank. 

China is the single largest creditor to Pakistan with over $31 billion in loans, while the United States has given more than $32 billion in direct support to Pakistan over the past two decades. 

It is unclear how Pakistan’s preference to skip the U.S. invitation to gain China’s approval will work out at a time when the country is facing serious economic challenges.   

Yet Pakistan’s decision was not driven purely by economic calculations, experts say. 

Fragile democracy

The U.S. summit came at a critical time for democracies around the world. The pace of democratization has slowed, while authoritarian regimes have become more effective and influential, according to Freedom House, a U.S. entity that reports on civil and political freedom globally.

“Democracy is on life support in Pakistan,” Kugelman said, adding that the country’s democratic progress made since 2008 is in peril.

For much of its existence since 1947, Pakistan has been taken over by a military dictatorship whenever the country suffered a civilian political breakdown.

Amid intensifying political brinkmanship between the incumbent coalition government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and former Prime Minister Imran Khan, leader of a major opposition party, there is fresh speculation about yet another coup. 

A declaration of martial law by the Pakistani military “would be the worst possible outcome for the country,” tweeted Madiha Afzal, a fellow in the foreign policy program at the Brookings Institution.  

The United States has long held a policy of supporting and promoting democracy across the world, but Washington seems to be distancing itself from the intensifying political drama in Pakistan.

“The sobering reality is that the U.S. has itself contributed to Pakistan’s democratic deficit by emphasizing its relations with Pakistani military leaders. That may advance U.S. goals for Washington’s relations with Pakistan, given that the army makes the big decisions on relations with the U.S., but it doesn’t help a perpetually fragile democracy that today is gasping for breath,” said Kugelman. 

Turkey

The United States did not invite Turkey, a constitutional secular democracy and a NATO ally, to the first democracy summit held in 2021 nor to the one that took place last week. 

Often labeled as an autocrat and dictator, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is blamed for taking Turkey on an undemocratic path — criticism that Erdogan has strongly rejected. 

“Turkey is no longer a democratic state but is perhaps best described as an electoral autocracy,” Paul Levin, director of the Institute for Turkish Studies at Stockholm University, told VOA.

Aside from concerns about its democratic backtracking, Turkey is the only NATO member country that has refused to enforce Western sanctions against Russia, particularly in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

“Ankara feels like it cannot afford to antagonize Russia, as it is dependent on energy imports and deferment of loan payments, as well as needing Russian cooperation to achieve its own objectives in Syria,” Levin said. 

By playing on both sides of the war in Ukraine, Erdogan tries to offset the economic crisis that Turkey has been facing, analysts say.

The absence of Turkey and Pakistan in the democracy summit was not conspicuous. Indonesia, the most populous Muslim democracy, Bangladesh and many others were also absent.

“Regarding why certain countries are not invited, we will not discuss internal deliberations. However, we reiterate that for the summit, we aim to be inclusive and representative of a regionally and socioeconomically diverse slate of countries. We are not seeking to define which countries are and aren’t democracies,” a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of State told VOA in an emailed response. 

Bringing 74 democracies to a forum, despite significant differences evinced in the final declaration of this year’s summit, was officially lauded as a major achievement.

But that achievement has limits, some analysts say.

“There was a certain arbitrariness to the summit guest list that I fear takes away from the credibility of the summit itself,” Kugelman said.  
…

Turkey has closed its airspace to flights to and from an airport in Kurdish-administered northern Iraq, a top Turkish official announced Wednesday, citing an alleged increase in Kurdish militant activity threatening flight safety. 

The airspace was closed Monday to flights taking off from and landing at Suleimaniyah International Airport, in northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Tanju Bilgic said. 

The closure was a response to an alleged increase in the activities of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, in the city of Suleimaniyah, including its “infiltration” of the airport, Bilgic said in a written statement. 

Bilgic said the Turkish airspace would remain closed until July 3, when Turkish authorities would review the security situation. 

The decision comes weeks after two helicopters crashed in northern Iraq, killing Kurdish militants who were on board. The incident fueled claims that the PKK was in possession of helicopters, infuriating Turkish authorities. 

The main U.S.-backed and Kurdish-led force in northeastern Syria later said it lost nine fighters, including a commander, in the crash, which occurred during bad weather on a flight to Suleimaniyah. The nine included elite fighters who were in Iraq as part of an “exchange of expertise” in the fight against the Islamic State group, according to a group known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF. 

Suleimaniyah International Airport director Handren al Mufti said the airport received an email from Turkish Airlines on April 3 saying its flights that day and the next were canceled. A subsequent email extended the flight suspension until April 11, Mufti said. 

He said airport officials received no response when they asked why the action was taken. 

“I can assure everyone that we have no security issues at all, and not a single incident of security breach occurred inside the airport, but apparently there are other purposes behind their decision,” Mufti said. 

Turkish Airlines flew twice daily from Istanbul to Suleimaniyah. 

The PKK has waged an insurgency against Turkey since the 1980s and is considered a terrorist group by Ankara, the United States and the European Union. Its members have established safe havens in northern Iraq and frequently come under attack by Turkey in the region. 

Turkey also considers a Syrian Kurdish militant group, which forms the backbone of the SDF, as a terrorist organization. The United States, however, distinguishes between the PKK and SDF and doesn’t consider the SDF a terrorist group. 

The helicopter crash also fed into a local rivalry between the two main Kurdish parties in Iraq. 

Officials from the Kurdish Democratic Party, which has maintained largely good relations with Turkey, alleged after the crash that the helicopters had been originally purchased by the rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party, which has its stronghold in Suleimaniyah, and that they had been flying without permission from the regional government. 
…

China feels it has the “right to redefine the global world order,” Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei told AFP on Wednesday ahead of the opening in London of his first design-focused exhibition. 

The show at the Design Museum features hundreds of thousands of objects collected by the Chinese artist since the 1990s, from Stone Age tools to Lego bricks, and draws on his love of artifacts and traditional craftsmanship. 

The son of a poet revered by former communist leaders, Ai, 65, is perhaps China’s best-known modern artist and helped design the famous “Bird’s Nest” stadium for Beijing’s 2008 Olympics. 

But he fell out of favor after criticizing the Chinese government, was imprisoned for 81 days in 2011 and eventually left for Germany four years later. 

Among the artifacts in the new exhibition are thousands of fragments from Ai’s porcelain sculptures, which were destroyed when the bulldozers moved in to dismantle his studio in Beijing in 2018. 

In launching the show, Ai said he believed China was “not moving into a more civilized society, but [had] rather become quite brutal on anybody who has different ideas.” 

“Tension between China and the West is very natural,” added the artist, who has lived in Europe since 2015. 

“China feel they have their own power and right to redefine the global world order,” he said. “They think China can become an important factor in changing the game rules, basically designed by the West world.” 

And he said that even though Europe had been relatively peaceful for 70 years, there were many problems, including much less concern for “humanity” and threats to “freedom of speech.” 

The objects to go on display include 1,600 Stone Age tools, 10,000 Song Dynasty cannon balls retrieved from a moat, and donated Lego bricks that the artist began working with in 2014 to produce portraits of political prisoners. 

The exhibition will also feature large-scale works installed outside the exhibition gallery. 

They include a piece titled “Colored House” featuring the painted timber frame of a house that was once the home of a prosperous family during the early Qing Dynasty (1644–1912). 

Exhibition curator Justin McGuirk said the things Ai had been collecting over the years represented “a body of evidence about different histories, different cultural moments in China’s history [that]  maybe have been forgotten or not thought about enough.”  

“Ai Weiwei always makes something out of destruction and plays on the idea of construction,” he added.
…