Manchester City was accused by the Premier League on Monday of providing misleading information about its finances over a nine-year period when the club was attempting to establish itself as a force in English and European soccer following its takeover by Abu Dhabi’s ruling family.

The explosive development came at the end of a four-year investigation by the world’s most popular soccer league in the wake of leaked club emails and documents from City officials that were published by German magazine Der Spiegel in November 2018.

The Premier League released a long statement detailing a list of about 80 alleged breaches of its financial rules by City from 2009-18, the first nine full seasons under Abu Dhabi ownership. In that time, the team won three Premier League titles — in 2012, 2014 and 2018 — in what has become the most successful period in City’s 143-year history.

The league also accused City of 30 more breaches relating to its alleged failure to co-operate with the investigation since December 2018.

The league said it has referred the breaches to an independent commission ahead of a confidential hearing.

In a statement, City said it was “surprised” by the allegations, “particularly given the extensive engagement and vast amount of detailed materials that the EPL (English Premier League) has been provided with.

“The club welcomes the review of this matter by an independent commission to impartially consider the comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence that exists in support of its position,” City said. “As such we look forward to this matter being put to rest once and for all.”

The Premier League has accused City of breaching rules requiring provision “in utmost good faith” of “accurate financial information that gives a true and fair view of the club’s financial position” between 2009-18 and failing to give “full details of manager remuneration in its relevant contracts” from 2009-13. Roberto Mancini was manager during that period.

The third and fourth offenses are a failure to comply with UEFA regulations from 2013-18 and the Premier League’s profitability and sustainability rules from 2015-18.

For the fifth offense, City is accused of breaching rules requiring clubs to “co-operate with and assist the Premier League with its investigations” from December 2018 to the present day.

City, the defending Premier League champion and a team owning some of the world’s top players like Erling Haaland and Kevin De Bruyne, could be at risk of severe punishment. The league’s rule book gives a disciplinary commission powers to impose a range of sanctions plus the wider scope of “such other penalty as it shall think fit.”

A large fine seems inevitable if the charges are proven. Also in play is a point deduction, a title nullified or even being expelled from the league, according to league rules.

City never disputed that the documents leaked by Der Spiegel were authentic, but has argued the evidence was stolen and reported out of context.

While City was under investigation by the Premier League, the club had a two-year ban from European club competitions overturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in 2020 after UEFA ruled City committed “serious breaches” of financial fair play regulations from 2012-16. That case arose on the back of the leaked information, too.

City was not fully cleared of wrongdoing, though the court said some of the allegations were not proven or could not be judged because of a statute of limitations in UEFA rules. There are no such time limits on the finances under investigation by the Premier League.

CAS also fined City 10 million euros (then $11.3 million) for failing to cooperate with investigators. The club’s “blatant disregard” should be “strongly condemned,” the court’s judges said.

City has been transformed into an English soccer power since being bought in September 2008 by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a deputy prime minister of the United Arab Emirates and a member of Abu Dhabi’s royal family.

Under its Abu Dhabi ownership, City — which previously lived in the shadow of neighbor Manchester United — has won six Premier League titles, two FA Cups and six English League Cups.

The team is in second place in the Premier League midway through this season, five points behind Arsenal having played one game more.
…

Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti called on Western powers not to pressure his tiny Balkan country into accepting a contentious association of five Serb-majority municipalities that is ramping up tensions between Kosovo and Serbia.

Kurti told The Associated Press that the focus instead should be on making Serbia more democratic and getting rid of what he called Belgrade’s hegemonistic ideas.

Kurti said in the interview on Sunday that the Serbian government should acknowledge the independence of all the ex-republics of former Yugoslavia in order to “face the past.” He stressed that Belgrade should lean more toward the European Union and NATO, not Russia.

The prime minister said that if they free themselves from the idea that Kosovo still belongs to Serbia, “they will be much more democratic, European.”

During the past several weeks, U.S. and EU envoys have visited Pristina and Belgrade to encourage them to accept a new proposal for the two countries to normalize relations and boost their EU accession bids.

A EU-mediated Kosovo-Serbia dialogue has been ongoing since 2011, but few of the 33 signed agreements have been implemented.

Kurti said the negotiations so far were “a problem-solving ideology … every solution became ever more complicated, ever less implementable, and the public lost interest.” He considered the new proposal “a good framework and platform for moving forward … which makes us hopeful about the prospects of future talks and an agreement.”

The proposal’s details haven’t yet been made public.

The United States has increased pressure on Pristina to implement a 2013 agreement to establish the Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities, which would coordinate work on education, health care, land planning and economic development at the local level. In 2015, Kosovo’s Constitutional Court later declared part of the plan unconstitutional, ruling that it wasn’t inclusive of other ethnicities and could entail the use of executive powers.

Kurti says the establishment of the association isn’t his priority, and last week he set conditions saying it can only be formed as part of an overall agreement on the normalization of relations, which Serbia has rejected in the past. Kosovo authorities fear it would eventually undermine the country’s statehood with the help of Belgrade.

Western powers should learn from the example of Bosnia’s Serb-run ministate Republica Srpska, fearing the creation of a ministate in Kosovo, he said, adding that Belgrade used the creation of the association “as a weapon against our independence.”

“If we introduce in the Western Balkans the idea of ethnically based association of municipalities, that’s a recipe for new conflicts,” Kurti said.

The Western powers should not impose pressure on smaller countries like Kosovo, which are democratic, he said. The problems between Kosovo and Serbia might be small and annoying, but they should pay attention to what has been going on in the region because “any kind of wrong solution in the Balkans can and will be used elsewhere.”

Mutual recognition is the centerpiece of any negotiation process, he insisted, something that Belgrade harshly turns down.

The dispute between Serbia and its former province of Kosovo has remained a source of instability in the Balkans long after the 1998-99 war, which ended with a NATO intervention that forced Serbia to pull out of the territory.

Kosovo in 2008 declared independence from Serbia, which Belgrade has refused to recognize, supported by Russia and China. The U.S. and most EU nations have recognized Kosovo.
…

At a central square in Serbia’s capital of Belgrade, dozens of Russians gathered recently to denounce President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, holding up photos of political prisoners from their homeland.

Across the plaza, a billboard touts the Russian propaganda outlet RT, which has launched an online news portal in the country but is banned elsewhere in Europe. Heroic portraits of a bare-chested Putin adorn souvenir T-shirts and coffee mugs, or are painted on city walls.

These conflicting images reflect the complex and delicate relationship these days between Russia and Serbia.

The Slavic country is Moscow’s closest ally in Europe, with historic, religious and cultural ties that are bolstered by Kremlin political influence campaigns. Russia backs Serbia’s claim over its former province of Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008 with Western support. And Serbia has refused to impose sanctions on Moscow over the invasion.

At the same time, Serbia wants to join the European Union. Populist President Aleksandar Vucic has denounced the invasion, and about 200,000 Russians have flooded into the country in the past year, with many seeking a new life in a brotherly land free of Kremlin oppression.

“Here in Belgrade, we are not perceived with hostility, and that means a lot,” said Anastasia Demidova, who arrived in the Balkan nation from Moscow three months ago.

“I’ve been talking to a lot of Serbian people here and other foreigners. When they ask me ‘what are you doing here,’ I say: ‘We are against Putin and for a democratic Russia and we are against the war in Ukraine, obviously,’” she told The Associated Press.

Others say they fled to avoid being drafted or because Western sanctions crippled their businesses or took away their jobs.

As a result, Russian can be heard spoken everywhere in Belgrade, a city of about 2 million. Russian-owned restaurants and bars have sprouted. Private Russian enterprises have mushroomed, especially in the IT sector. The influx has sent the price of real estate soaring.

This reminds some here of the wave of Russians fleeing the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, and many of those who stayed in Serbia left their mark on its culture and art.

These modern Russians, however, are maintaining links to their homeland, including financial ties, said historian Aleksej Timofejev. Unlike their predecessors, he said, they can’t go onward to the West because of the sanctions and still need visas to travel to richer countries in Europe.

“They did not choose this country but came here because it is the only one that would have them,” Timofejev added.

The newcomers say they can still feel Moscow’s heavy-handed influence, especially when it comes to Serbians’ approval for Putin, via media outlets like RT.

Russian activist Petar Nikitin calls it a “coordinated propaganda effort.”

Nikitin first came to Serbia in the early 2000s. Back then, “this admiration for the Russian government was a lot more marginal … and I saw it grow exponentially,” he said.

Russians “who recently arrived, who didn’t know much about Serbia before, yes, many of them told me they were completely shocked to see this idolization specifically of Putin, and this picture of Russia that is completely divorced from reality,” Nikitin said.

Moscow has boosted this sentiment in the pro-Russia media by feeding Serbian anger with the West over Kosovo following the breakup of former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. The dispute between Serbia and Kosovo has been a source of tension since the war in 1998-99 that ended when a NATO bombing campaign forced Serbia to pull out of the former Serbian province after a bloody crackdown against Kosovo Albanian separatists and civilians.

Serbia’s rejection of Kosovo’s declaration of independence has Moscow’s support — one of the reasons why Belgrade maintains friendly relations with Putin and has refused to join Western sanctions.

While Vucic has criticized the invasion of Ukraine, he puts a uniquely Balkan spin on it.

“We do support territorial integrity of Ukraine, as we do support territorial integrity of Serbia,” he told the World Economic Forum in Davos last month. “So … they ask me, ‘Is Crimea part of Ukraine or Russia?’ Yes, it’s part of Ukraine. Donbas is part of Ukraine. If you ask us.”

His country “will stick to that, and we will be more loyal to territorial integrity of U.N. member states than many others that changed their stance on territorial integrity of Serbia,” Vucic added, referring to the support for Kosovo’s independence from Washington and other countries.

Western officials have stepped up pressure on Vucic to make a decisive turn away from Moscow if Serbia wants to join the EU. They fear that Russia could stir trouble in the Balkans through its Serbian proxies to avert some of the international attention from Ukraine.

Recently, the Russian private military contractor Wagner Group ran advertisements on RT’s Serbian-language outlet recruiting Serbs to fight in Ukraine. It is illegal for Serbs to take part in conflicts outside the country, although about a dozen joined Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine after battles broke out there in 2014.

Owned by Putin-linked oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, Wagner has taken a prominent and active role in Ukraine and also has sent its mercenaries to several African countries. Last month, U.S. State Department Counselor Derek Chollet held talks with Vucic to voice concerns about Wagner’s activities in Serbia.

Nikitin, the Russian activist who has formed a group called Russian Democratic Community, has teamed up with a Serbian lawyer to file a lawsuit demanding an investigation of the mercenary group. That led to increased threats against more liberal Russians from right-wing Serbian organizations with close links to Wagner and Moscow.

“The threats that I receive directly and to my inbox are quite carefully worded — they are quite obvious,” Nikitin said. “They range from ‘get out of Serbia’ to very obscene insults involving my family. And veiled threats that I am soon going to meet people who are dead.”

Nikitin said his more liberal-minded countrymen in Serbia are eager to show they don’t support Putin’s war or his crackdown on opposition groups at home.

“We want to be very open about who we are and why we hold the views that we hold,” he said.

Artem, a 33-year-old web developer from St. Petersburg, said that he fled to Serbia with his wife and two pets shortly after the war began on February 24. He spoke with the AP on condition that his last name not be used for “safety reasons.”

Speaking at a Belgrade bar that’s an unofficial hub for more liberal Russians — its Wi-Fi password is “Nowar2402” — he said he’s been helping Ukrainian refugees in Serbia through online aid campaigns, providing information on how to start a new life.

Leaving Russia “was some kind of protest because I didn’t agree at all with the war,” Artem said. “War for me is not an answer for any conflict or anything.”
…

A powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake early Monday killed at least 76 people in southern Turkey and dozens more in northern Syria. 

Search and rescue crews worked to find people among buildings toppled by the quake that also injured hundreds more, according to Turkey’s emergency service. Turkey appealed for international help. 

“We hope that we will get through this disaster together as soon as possible and with the least damage,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan tweeted. 

Turkey’s Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said there were more than 20 aftershocks.  He said the earthquake affected at least 10 provinces in Turkey and that he and other Cabinet members were going to those areas. 

The epicenter of the earthquake was located near Gaziantep, a key industrial and manufacturing hub close to the Turkey-Syria border. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, people reported feeling the tremors in Lebanon and Cyprus as well. 

In the Turkish city of Mersin, resident Nurhan Kiral told VOA’s Turkish service that the earthquake lasted about a minute. 

“We woke up with the tremor and got out of the bed. Rubble fell from the chimney. Rubble fell from the empty space between the buildings. It was terrifying,” Kiral said. 

U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said President Joe Biden directed the U.S. Agency for International Development and other federal partners “to assess U.S. response options to help those most affected.”

“The United States is profoundly concerned by the reports of today’s destructive earthquake in Turkiye and Syria. We stand ready to provide any and all needed assistance,” Sullivan said in a statement. 

Turkey is in one of the world’s most active earthquake zones.    

In 1999, 17,000 people were killed when a 7.4-magnitude earthquake — the worst to hit Turkey in decades — struck near Duzce, in the northwest of the country.    

In October 2022, a magnitude-7.0 quake hit the Aegean Sea, killing 116 people and wounding more than 1,000. All but two of the victims were in Izmir, Turkey.     

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

Cybersecurity agencies in Europe are warning of ransomware attacks exploiting a two-year-old computer bug as Italy experienced widespread internet outages. 

The Italian premier’s office said Sunday night the attacks affecting computer systems in the country involved “ransomware already in circulation” in a product made by cloud technology provider VMware. 

A Friday technical bulletin from a French cybersecurity agency said the attack campaigns target VMware ESXi hypervisors, which are used to monitor virtual machines. 

Palo Alto, California-based VMware fixed the bug back in February 2021, but the attacks are targeting older, unpatched versions of the product. 

The company said in a statement Sunday that its customers should take action to apply the patch if they have not already done so. 

“Security hygiene is a key component of preventing ransomware attacks,” it said. 

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said Sunday it is “working with our public and private sector partners to assess the impacts of these reported incidents and providing assistance where needed.” 

The problem attracted particular public attention in Italy on Sunday because it coincided with a nationwide internet outage affecting telecommunications operator Telecom Italia, which interfered with streaming the Spezia v. Napoli soccer match but appeared largely resolved by the time of the later Derby della Madonnina between Inter Milan and AC Milan. It was unclear whether the outages were related to the ransomware attacks. 
…

Pope Francis said Sunday he is planning to visit India next year and is studying a possible trip to Mongolia later in 2023 in what would be a first for a pope.

Francis outlined his upcoming travel schedule during his flight back to Rome from South Sudan.

He confirmed that he would be in Lisbon, Portugal for World Youth Day the first week of August and would participate in a Sept. 23 meeting of Mediterranean bishops in Marseille, France.

He said there was “the possibility” that he would fly from Marseille to Mongolia, which would be a first for a pope.

Looking further ahead, Francis said he thought he would visit India in 2024, after plans for a trip in 2017 fell apart.

Francis spoke to reporters after a six-day visit to Congo and South Sudan, where he was joined in the South Sudanese capital, Juba, by the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and the moderator of the Church of Scotland, the Rt. Rev. Iain Greenshields.

The Catholic, Anglican and Presbyterian leaders made a novel joint visit to push South Sudan’s political leaders to make progress on implementing a stalled 2018 peace accord that ended a civil war following the country’s 2011 independence from Sudan.

Welby and Greenshields joined Francis aboard the papal plane back and took part in his airborne news conference, during which they were asked if they would be willing to join Francis on future trips too.

Welby said he would be “delighted to” if it might be helpful, joking that the papal plane was “the best airline I’ve ever flown on.”

Greenshields also was keen but noted his mandate ends in May.

In a nod to the nearly all-male Vatican delegation that accompanies Francis on his foreign trips, Greenshields pointed out that he would be replaced by “a very capable woman” as moderator of the Church of Scotland, the Rev. Sally Foster-Fulton, an American. The Church of Scotland has had ordained female ministers since the 1960s.

“She would be delighted to do the same thing,” he said.

The Vatican delegation, made up mostly of cardinals and bishops, traditionally only includes one woman: a protocol expert in the Vatican secretariat of state. On this trip, Francis also invited as his personal guest a Congolese nun.
…

Thousands of people gathered in Copenhagen on Sunday to protest a bill put forward by the government to scrap a public holiday to help finance increased defense spending.

The demonstration was organized by the country’s biggest labor unions which oppose abolishing the Great Prayer Day, a Christian holiday that falls on the fourth Friday after Easter and dates to 1686.

Unions organizing the protest estimated at least 50,000 people took part, which would make it Denmark’s biggest demonstration in more than a decade. Local police don’t give such crowd estimates.

The holiday abolition was proposed in December to help raise tax revenues for higher defense spending in the wake of Russia’s war on Ukraine and is part of the newly formed Danish government’s sweeping reform program aimed at overcoming challenges to Denmark’s welfare model.

The government has proposed moving forward by three years to 2030 a goal of meeting a NATO defense spending target of 2% of GDP. It says most of the extra 4.5 billion Danish crowns ($654 million) needed to meet the target could be covered by the higher tax revenues it anticipates from abolishing the holiday.

However, unions, opposition lawmakers and economists have questioned the effect of the proposal. Some economists have said it is unlikely to have long-lasting effects, as workers would find other ways to adjust their working hours.

In the Danish labor market, pay and working hours are primarily regulated by collective agreements between highly organized worker and employer groups without intervention by the state.

However, the government, which holds a slim majority in parliament, says it intends to push the bill through regardless of any opposition.

“Normally these things are discussed with the working people, and now this model is about to be overruled. We are protesting to hopefully make them listen,” said plumber Stig De Blanck, 63, who was demonstrating in front of parliament.

Danes work fewer hours than most countries in Europe, according to OECD data.
…

Ukraine said Sunday it is planning for the possibility of a major Russian offensive this month to coincide with the anniversary of Russia’s February 24 invasion, but says it has the reserves to hold off Moscow’s forces.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov told a news conference that Russia could launch the attack for “symbolic” reasons, even though Moscow’s forces are not prepared militarily.

“Despite everything, we expect a possible Russian offensive in February,” Reznikov said. “This is only from the point of view of symbolism; it’s not logical from a military view. Because not all of their resources are ready. But they’re doing it anyway.”

Reznikov said the Russian offensive would likely be launched in the east – where fighting has been centered for months and Russia is trying to capture all the heavily-industrialized Donbas region — or possibly the south, where it wants to widen its land corridor to the occupied Crimean Peninsula that it illegally annexed in 2014.

The defense chief estimated that Russia had 12,000 troops stationed at Belarusian military bases, a number too small to launch a significant attack into Ukraine’s north.

Russian forces have been making incremental advances in the east as Moscow tries to capture the embattled city of Bakhmut, where fighting has raged for weeks.

The United States and other Western governments have pledged billions of dollars in new military assistance, including tanks and infantry fighting vehicles to help Ukraine withstand a new attack as well as to help Kyiv launch a counteroffensive.

“Not all of the Western weaponry will arrive in time,” Reznikov said. “But we are ready. We have created our resources and reserves, which we are able to deploy and with which we are able to hold back the attack.”

On the battlefront Sunday, Ukraine said five people were injured in Russian rocket attacks in the central area of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city.

Kharkiv’s regional governor, Oleh Syniehubov, said four people were injured when a Russian S-300 missile fell near an apartment block, and another was hurt when a missile hit a university building.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday the situation is becoming tougher in eastern Ukraine, with a fresh wave of Russian shelling in Chernihiv, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk and the Mykolaiv regions.  

In his nightly video address, the Ukrainian leader said Russia was “throwing more and more of its forces at breaking down our defense.”  

Ukrainian officials said they repelled a renewed Russian assault on the besieged eastern city of Bakhmut on Saturday. Zelenskyy Friday pledged not to “surrender Bakhmut. We will fight as long as we can.”   

In a phone conversation Saturday, Zelenskyy discussed the latest situation on the ground in Ukraine with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, with both agreeing on the need to accelerate the arrival of additional military support from the West. They also discussed the long-term capabilities of Ukraine’s armed forces.   

The Ukrainian president thanked Sunak and Britain for helping Ukraine. “Now, in the UK, our guys have already started training on Challenger tanks. It’s a good vehicle. And it will be a big thing on the battlefield,” Zelenskyy said.   

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said recently the country would receive 120 to 140 Western tanks in a “first wave” of deliveries from a coalition of 12 countries.  

Kyiv secured pledges from the West to supply main battle tanks to help fend off Russia’s full-scale invasion, with Moscow mounting huge efforts to make incremental advances in eastern Ukraine.  

The United States announced Friday it would provide an additional $2.175 billion worth of military aid for Ukraine, including conventional and long-range rockets for U.S.-provided HIMARs, as well as other munitions and weapons. According to a U.S. official, the longer-range, precision-guided rockets would double Ukraine’s strike range for the first time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  

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

Pope Francis, the head of the Anglican Communion and top Presbyterian minister together denounced the criminalization of homosexuality on Sunday and said gay people should be welcomed by their churches.

The three Christian leaders spoke out on LGBTQ rights during an unprecedented joint airborne news conference returning home from South Sudan, where they took part in a three-day ecumenical pilgrimage to try to nudge the young country’s peace process forward.

They were asked about Francis’ recent comments to The Associated Press, in which he declared that laws that criminalize gay people were “unjust” and that “being homosexual is not a crime.”

South Sudan is one of 67 countries that criminalizes homosexuality, 11 of them with the death penalty. LGBTQ advocates say even where such laws are not applied, they contribute to a climate of harassment, discrimination and violence.

Francis referred his Jan. 24 comments to the AP and repeated that such laws are “unjust.” He also repeated previous comments that parents should never throw their gay children out of the house.

“To condemn someone like this is a sin,” he said. “Criminalizing people with homosexual tendencies is an injustice.”

“People with homosexual tendencies are children of God. God Loves them. God accompanies them,” he added.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, recalled that LGBTQ rights were very much on the current agenda of the Church of England, and said he would quote the pope’s own words when the issue is discussed at the church’s upcoming General Synod.

“I wish I had spoken as eloquently and clearly as the pope. I entirely agree with every word he said,” Welby said.

Recently, the Church of England decided to allow blessings for same-sex civil marriages but said same-sex couples could not marry in its churches. The Vatican forbids both gay marriage and blessings for same-sex unions.

Welby told reporters that the issue of criminalization had been taken up at two previous Lambeth Conferences of the broader Anglican Communion, which includes churches in Africa and the Middle East where such anti-gay laws are most common and often enjoy support by conservative bishops.

The broader Lambeth Conference has come out twice opposing criminalization, “But it has not really changed many people’s minds,” Welby said.

The Rt. Rev. Iain Greenshields, the Presbyterian moderator of the Church of Scotland who also participated in the pilgrimage and news conference, offered an observation.

“There is nowhere in my reading of the four Gospels where I see Jesus turning anyone away,” he said. “There is nowhere in the four Gospels where I see anything other than Jesus expressing love to whomever he meets.

“And as Christians, that is the only expression that we can possibly give to any human being, in any circumstance.”

The Church of Scotland allows same-sex marriages. Catholic teaching holds that gay people must be treated with dignity and respect, but that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered.”
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Britain faces its largest ever strike by health workers on Monday as tens of thousands of nurses and ambulance workers walk out in an escalating pay dispute with the government, spelling further disruption for an already strained health system.

Nurses and ambulance workers have been striking separately on and off since late last year but Monday’s walkout involving both, largely in England, will represent the biggest in the 75-year history of the National Health Service (NHS).

England’s top doctor, Stephen Powis, said strike action this week, which will also see physiotherapists walk out on Thursday, would most probably be the most disruptive so far.

Health workers are demanding a pay rise that reflects the worst inflation in Britain in four decades, while the government says that would be unaffordable and cause more price rises, and in turn, make interest rates and mortgage payments go up further.

Around 500,000 workers, many from the public sector, have been staging strikes since last summer, adding to pressure on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to resolve the disputes and limit disruption to public services such as railways and schools.

Asked by Sky News if the strikes would put lives at risk, business minister Grant Shapps said he was “concerned that it does” because of a lack of cooperation between the back-up services, such as the army, and those workers who are striking.

“The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) have very responsibly … told the NHS this is where we are going to be striking and they’re able to put the emergency cover in place. Unfortunately, we’ve been seeing a situation with the ambulance unions where they refuse to provide that information,” he said.

Ambulance workers have denied Shapps’ allegation.

Sharon Graham, leader of the Unite union, told the BBC on Sunday she wanted Sunak to come to the negotiating table, accusing the government of lying about ambulance workers.

“This government is putting lives at risk,” she said.

The NHS, historically a source of pride for most Britons, is under extreme pressure with millions of patients on waiting lists for operations and thousands each month failing to receive prompt emergency care.

The RCN says a decade of poor pay has contributed to tens of thousands of nurses leaving the profession — 25,000 over just the last year — with the severe staffing shortages impacting patient care.

The RCN initially asked for a pay rise of 5% above inflation and has since said it could meet the government “halfway”, but both sides have failed to reach an agreement despite weeks of talks.

Meanwhile, thousands of ambulance workers represented by the GMB and Unite trade unions are also set to strike on Monday in their own pay dispute. Both unions have announced several more days of industrial action.

Not all ambulance workers will strike at once and emergency calls will be attended to.

In Wales, nurses and some ambulance workers have called off strikes planned for Monday as they review pay offers from the Welsh government.

Sunak said in a TalkTV interview last week he would “love to give the nurses a massive pay rise” but said the government faced tough choices and that it was funding the NHS in other areas such as by providing medical equipment and ambulances.

 
…

Voters in Cyprus are going to the polls Sunday to elect a new president.

While 14 candidates are running for the office, the real race is expected to be among three candidates who are all closely associated with current president Nicos Anastasiades.

Right-wing DISY party leader Averof Neophytou, career diplomat Andreas Mavroyiannis and former foreign minister Nikos Christodoulides, who is leading in the polls, are the top candidates, analysts say.

If no one receives more than half the votes, then the two candidates who get the most votes in Sunday’s poll will face off in a runoff election later this month.

Migration and inflation are among the issues affecting Cypriots.

Cyprus has more than half a million eligible voters.   
…

Pushing her son on a swing at a playground on a sunny winter’s day in Madrid, former Afghan prosecutor Obaida Sharar expresses relief that she found asylum in Spain after fleeing Afghanistan shortly after the Taliban took over. 

Sharar, who arrived in Madrid with her family, is one of 19 female prosecutors to have found asylum in the country after being left in limbo in Pakistan without official refugee status for up to a year after the Taliban’s return to power. 

She feels selfish being happy while her fellow women suffer, she said. 

“Most Afghan women and girls that remain in Afghanistan don’t have the right to study, to have a social life or even go to a beauty salon,” Sharar said. “I cannot be happy.” 

Women’s freedoms in her home country were abruptly curtailed in 2021 with the arrival of a government that enforces a strict interpretation of Islam. 

The Taliban administration has banned most female aid workers and last year stopped women and girls from attending high school and university. 

Sharar’s work and that of her female peers while they lived in Afghanistan was dangerous. Female judges and prosecutors were threatened and became the target of revenge attacks as they undertook work overseeing the trial and conviction of men accused of gender crimes, including rape and murder. 

She was part of a group of 32 women judges and prosecutors that left Afghanistan only to be stuck in Pakistan for up to a year trying to find asylum. 

A prosecutor, who gave only her initials as S.M. due to fears over her safety and who specialized in gender violence and violence against children said, “I was the only female prosecutor in the province … I received threats from Taliban members and the criminals who I had sent to prison.” 

Now she and her family are also in Spain. 

Many of the women have said they felt abandoned by Western governments and international organizations. 

Ignacio Rodriguez, a Spanish lawyer and president of Bilbao-based 14 Lawyers, a non-governmental organization which defends prosecuted lawyers, said the women had been held up as symbols of democratic success only to be discarded. 

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said it was not in a position to comment on specific cases. 

“The Government of Pakistan has not agreed to recognize newly arriving Afghans as refugees,” UNHCR said in a statement. “Since 2021, UNHCR has been in discussions with the government on measures and mechanisms to support vulnerable Afghans. Regrettably, no progress has been made.” 

The foreign ministry of Pakistan did not respond immediately to a request for comment. 

Pakistan is home to millions of refugees from Afghanistan who fled after the Soviet Union’s invasion in 1979 and during the subsequent civil war. Most of them are yet to return despite Pakistan’s push to repatriate them under different programs. 

The Taliban has said any Afghan who fled the country since it took power in 2021 can return safely through a repatriation council. 

“Afghanistan is the joint home of all Afghans,” said Bilal Karimi, deputy spokesperson for the Taliban administration. “They can live here without any threat.” 
…

The thermometer sinks below zero as a blizzard of fine snow descends on two houses freshly built inside a massive laboratory in northern England.

Despite the icy conditions, the two energy-efficient homes remain cozy and warm due to their use of cutting-edge heating and insulation technology.

Welcome to Energy House 2.0 — a science experiment designed to help the world’s housebuilders slash carbon emissions, save energy and tackle climate change.

The project, based in a laboratory resembling a giant warehouse on Salford University campus near the center of Manchester, opened last month.

Rain, wind, sunshine and snow can be recreated in temperatures ranging from 40 degrees Celsius to –20 Celsius, operated from a control center.

Replicating weather

“What we’ve tried to achieve here is to be able to replicate the weather conditions that would be experienced around 95% of the populated Earth,” Professor Will Swan, head of energy house laboratories at the university, told AFP.

The facility, comprising two chambers that can experience different weather at the same time, will test types of housing from all over the world “to understand how we deliver their net-zero and energy-efficient homes,” he added.

The two houses, which are quintessentially British and constructed by firms with U.K. operations, will remain in place for a few years.

Other builders will then be able to rent space in the lab to put their own properties under the spotlight.

The project’s first house was built by U.K. property firm Barratt Developments and French materials giant Saint-Gobain.

It is clad with decorative bricks over a frame of wood panels and insulation, with solar panels on the roof.

Scientists are examining the efficiency of several different types of heating systems, including air-source heat pumps.

In the living room, a hot-water circuit is located along the bottom of the walls, while further heat is provided via infrared technology in the molding and from a wall panel.

Mirrors also act as infrared radiators while numerous sensors monitor which rooms are in use.

Residents will be able to manage the technology via one single control system similar to Amazon’s voice-activated Alexa interface.

Builders estimate the cutting-edge tech will mean that the energy bill will be just one quarter of what the average U.K. home currently pays, a boon to customers reeling from sky-high energy prices.

It will also make an important contribution to Britain’s efforts to reach zero carbon emissions by 2050 to combat climate change.

A parliamentary report found that, in 2019, 17% of heating emissions from buildings came from homes — making their contribution similar to all the petrol and diesel cars driving on Britain’s roads.

Environmental campaigners have long called on the U.K. government to increase energy efficiency and insulation support for existing homes across Britain.

‘Alexa of home energy’

“One of the key technologies that we’re trying on this house is almost like a building management system for residential buildings,” said Tom Cox, U.K. technical director at Saint-Gobain.

“It’s almost like the Alexa of the home energy system — and that can be automated as much as the occupant wants.”

And now with their mega-laboratory, scientists and companies no longer have to wait for extreme swings in the weather.

“We can test a year’s worth of weather conditions in a week,” added Cox.

The “ultimate goal is to create that environment which is comfortable and cost effective and commercially viable to deliver,” added Cox.

“At the same time (we are) addressing the sustainability issues that we have in construction.”
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After the EU border agency Frontex said more migrants and asylum seekers are now taking the Balkan route to western Europe than any other, research groups argue it’s because sea routes are becoming more dangerous. Meanwhile, at the land route’s terminus in Trieste, Italy, nonprofits say systems for housing migrants are being overwhelmed. Henry Wilkins reports.
Camera: Henry Wilkins
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A funeral for a Belarusian military volunteer and activist who died fighting on the frontlines in eastern Ukraine was held Saturday in Kyiv.

Eduard Lobau was killed in fierce artillery battles in Vuhledar against Russian troops as part of a small but dynamic regiment of Belarusian dissidents fighting alongside the Ukrainian armed forces. His body will be taken to Warsaw for burial.

Russian troops have ramped up attacks in the east of Ukraine, particularly in the industrial towns of Bakhmut and Vuhledar. Moscow has said its main goal is to capture the eastern Donetsk province which it considers a part of Russia.

Lobau is the latest casualty of the Kalinowsky Regiment, the unit named after a prominent Belarusian revolutionary who initiated an uprising against imperial Russia in the late 1800s. Volunteers oppose Belarusian authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Russia. They believe Ukraine’s victory over Russia will spur regime change in Minsk.

“This is a very special regiment, consisting only of Belarusians. This is not their country, this is not their nation, but it’s their war,” said Bohdan Yaremenko, a lawmaker in Ukraine’s parliament who attended the funeral. “I am here as a sign of my support, and of my solidarity from my heart to theirs.”

Olena Kharkhel, held a portrait of Lobau in the church as his comrades paid their last respects. Her husband, also a Belarusian dissident, died fighting in the east with the regiment in June. He and Lobau had been good friends.

“By fighting against Russia, we can liberate Belarus from Lukashenko’s regime,” she said.

One by one, the volunteers walked to Lobau’s coffin, draped with the Belarusian flag to pay their last respects in Kyiv’s Cathedral of St. Alexander. Most covered their faces to conceal their identities.

Lobau served four years of jail time for acts of disobedience in his native Belarus in 2010. Following his release in 2014 he fled to Ukraine and joined the armed forces as a military volunteer.

Belarusians make up a prominent contingent of foreign fighters in Ukraine. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine propelled them to mobilize. The regiment itself was formalized in March 2022 and has been active in numerous key battles from the early days of the war, including in Mykolaiv, Kherson and the defense of Bucha and Irpin. Lobau participated in the latter.

“We can say he spent his entire life defending high ideals and sacrificing for others,” said friend and fellow volunteer Jan Melnikov.
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Dozens of Russian and Ukrainian prisoners of war have returned home following a prisoner swap, officials on both sides said Saturday.

Top Ukrainian presidential aide Andriy Yermak said in a Telegram post that 116 Ukrainians were freed.

He said the released POWs include troops who held out in Mariupol during Moscow’s monthslong siege that reduced the southern port city to ruins, as well as guerrilla fighters from the Kherson region and snipers captured during the ongoing fierce battles for the eastern city of Bakhmut.

Russian defense officials, meanwhile, announced that 63 Russian troops had returned from Ukraine following the swap, including some “special category” prisoners whose release was secured following mediation by the United Arab Emirates.

A statement issued Saturday by the Russian Defense Ministry did not provide details about these “special category” captives.

At least three civilians have been killed in Ukraine over the past 24 hours as Russian forces struck nine regions in the country’s south, north and east, according to reports on Ukrainian TV by regional governors on Saturday morning.

Two people were killed, and 14 others wounded in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region by Russian shelling and missile strikes, local Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said in a Telegram update on Saturday morning.

The casualties included a man who was killed and seven others who were wounded Friday after Russian missiles slammed into Toretsk, a town in the Donetsk region. Kyrylenko said that 34 houses, two kindergartens, an outpatient clinic, a library, a cultural center and other buildings were damaged in the strike.

Seven teenagers received shrapnel wounds after an anti-personnel mine exploded late Friday in the northeastern city of Izium, local Governor Oleh Syniehubov said on Telegram. He said they were all hospitalized but their lives were not in danger.

Elsewhere, regional Ukrainian officials reported overnight shelling by Russia of border settlements in the northern Sumy region, as well as the town of Marhanets, which neighbors the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Kyiv has long accused Moscow of using the plant, which Russian forces seized early in the war, as a base for launching attacks on Ukrainian-held territory across the Dnieper River.
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Nearly 500,000 people have been left without power after an overloaded electrical substation in Odesa, Ukraine’s southern port city on the Black Sea, caught fire, while the temperature in Odesa stood at 2 degrees Celsius (35.6° Fahrenheit) Saturday and is forecast to drop below freezing for much of next week.

Ukrainian officials warned that repairs could take weeks. According to The Washington Post, regional Governor Maksym Marchenko said he did not have a timeline for when power would be restored to the city.

The CEO of the state grid operator Ukrenergo, Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, said critical equipment that had already been damaged several times by Russian missile strikes burst into flames when it could no longer “withstand the load,” delivering a fresh blow to the country’s ailing energy grid that has been pounded by Russian strikes for months.

“[The equipment] has been struck so many times that its state leaves much to be desired,” Kudrytskyi told a briefing in Odesa.

The Ukrainian government said it would appeal to Turkey to send vessels that carry power plants to Odesa and ordered the energy ministry’s nationwide stocks of high-power generators to be delivered to the city within a day.

“We will do everything we can for the improvement of the power supply situation to take days rather than weeks,” he said.

Kudrytskyi warned any further Russian missile or drone attacks could make the situation even worse.

Missiles from Moscow

Since October, Moscow has waged a campaign of massive missile attacks on the energy infrastructure. Moscow claims the strikes aim to reduce Ukraine’s ability to fight; Kyiv says they have no military purpose and are intended to hurt civilians.

Russia has formally integrated occupied areas of Ukraine into Russia’s Southern Military District, the British Defense Ministry said Saturday in its daily intelligence report. The agency said news of the integration is based on a Tass report that the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions are being placed under the three-star command based in Rostov-on-Don.

The report said the move is “unlikely to have an immediate impact,” however, on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Oil price cap

The Group of Seven industrialized countries agreed Friday on a price cap for refined Russian oil exports.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in statement that the agreement follows a similar price cap on Russian crude oil exports set in December and “helps advance our goals of limiting Russia’s key revenue generator in funding its illegal war” in Ukraine.

Officials say the cap is at two levels — $100 per barrel for Russian diesel and other fuels that sell for more than crude, and $45 per barrel for Russian oil products that sell for less than the price of crude, such as fuel oil.

The price caps come as a European Union ban on Russian oil product imports is set to go into force Sunday.

Earlier Friday, European Union officials pledged their unwavering support to help Ukraine rebuild its infrastructure against Russia’s ongoing war, while the U.S. announced a new round of security assistance worth more than $2 billion.

Charles Michel, president of the European Council, and Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv for the 24th EU-Ukraine Summit. The EU officials said the union will support Ukraine “for as long as it takes.”

In a joint statement Friday, the officials promised to help rebuild Ukraine’s devastated critical infrastructure, providing energy support and services for the country “to get through the winter,” and beyond. They said that so far, the EU and its member states have provided assistance worth $570 million in the areas of energy and reconstruction, and another $525 million for humanitarian efforts.

The officials underscored their commitment to promote Ukraine’s integration into the European Union, but they said there was no promise of fast-track membership.

Kyiv applied to become an EU member shortly after Russia’s invasion and wants to start formal accession talks as soon as possible.

“There are no rigid timelines, but there are goals that you have to reach,” von der Leyen told the news conference in response to a question about Ukraine’s accession drive. One of the conditions for Ukraine’s EU integration is its fight against corruption. The EU Commission president praised Kyiv for its expanded efforts to clamp down on graft.

Michel and von der Leyen condemned Russia’s escalating war against Ukraine and its citizens as “a manifest violation of international law, including the principles of the U.N. Charter.” They emphasized the need to establish a Special Tribunal at The Hague for the investigation and prosecution of war crimes against Ukraine.

They also emphasized that the EU will never recognize as lawful any illegal annexation of Ukraine by Russia.

In addition, the EU officials unveiled a new package of sanctions, the 10th, against Russia. It will target the trade and technology that supports its war against Ukraine, von der Leyen said.

U.S. defense assistance

The U.S. announced Friday it would provide an additional $2.175 billion worth of military aid for Ukraine, including conventional and long-range rockets for U.S.-provided HIMARs, as well as other munitions and weapons. According to a U.S. official, the longer-range precision-guided rockets would double Ukraine’s strike range for the first time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

During a news briefing Friday, Brigadier General Patrick Ryder said the aid includes “critical air defense capabilities to help Ukraine defend its people, as well as armored infantry vehicles and more equipment that Ukraine is using so effectively, including Javelin anti-tank missiles, artillery ammunition.”

Ryder added that “as part of the USAI [Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative] package, we will be providing Ground Launched Small Diameter Bombs to Ukraine.”

Friday’s aid package opens the door to many more deliveries of Ground Launched Small Diameter Bombs, which have a range of 94 miles, according to a document reviewed by Reuters.

In total, the U.S. has supplied nearly $30 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden administration, the Defense Department reports. Since 2014, the United States has committed more than $32 billion in security assistance to Ukraine, and more than $29.3 billion since the beginning of Russia’s unprovoked, full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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Paco Rabanne, the Spanish-born designer known for perfumes sold worldwide and for metallic, space-age fashions, has died, the group that owns his fashion house announced Friday.     

“The House of Paco Rabanne wishes to honor our visionary designer and founder who passed away today at the age of 88. Among the most seminal fashion figures of the 20th century, his legacy will remain,” the statement from beauty and fashion company Puig said.   

Le Telegramme newspaper quoted the mayor of Vannes, David Robo, as saying that Rabanne died at his home in the Brittany region town of Portsall.   

Rabanne’s fashion house shows its collections in Paris and is scheduled to unveil the brand’s latest ready-to-wear designs during the upcoming Feb. 27-March 3 fashion week.   

Rabanne was known as a rebel designer in a career that blossomed with his collaboration with the family-owned Puig, a Spanish company that now also owns other design houses, including Nina Ricci, Jean Paul Gaultier, Caroline Herrera and Dries Van Noten. The company also owns the fragrance brands Byredo and Penhaligon’s.    

“Paco Rabanne made transgression magnetic. Who else could induce fashionable Parisian women (to) clamor for dresses made of plastic and metal? Who but Paco Rabanne could imagine a fragrance called Calandre – the word means ‘automobile grill,’ you know – and turn it into an icon of modern femininity?” the group’s statement said.   

Calandre perfume was launched in 1969, the first product by Puig in Spain, France and the United States, according to the company.   

Born Francisco Rabaneda y Cuervo in 1934, the future designer fled the Spanish Basque country at age 5 during the Spanish Civil War and took the name of Paco Rabanne.     

He studied architecture at Paris’ Beaux Arts Academie before moving to couture, following in the steps of his mother, a couturier in Spain. He said she was jailed at one point for being dressed in a “scandalous” fashion.   

Rabanne sold accessories to well-known designers before launching his own collection.   

He titled the first collection presented under his own name “12 unwearable dresses in contemporary materials.” His innovative outfits were made of various kinds of metal, including his famous use of mail, the chain-like material associated with Medieval knights.   

Coco Chanel reportedly called Rabanne “the metallurgist of fashion.”   

“My colleagues tell me I am not a couturier but an artisan, and it’s true that I’m an artisan. … I work with my hands,” he said in an interview in the 1970s.   

In an interview given when he was 43, and now held in France’s National Audiovisual Institute, Rabanne explained his radical fashion philosophy: “I think fashion is prophetic. Fashion announces the future.” He added that women were harbingers of what lies on the horizon.   

“When hair balloons, regimes fall,” Rabanne said. “When hair is smooth, all is well.”   

The president of the Association of Fashion Designers of Spain, Modesto Lomba, said Rabanne “left an absolute mark on the passage of time. Let’s not forget that he was Spanish and that he triumphed inside and outside Spain.”
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Italy’s coast guard Friday found eight bodies, including the body of a pregnant woman, on a migrant vessel that was attempting to make the journey across the Mediterranean from Tunisia to Italy.

The bodies were unloaded on Italy’s Lampedusa island, the first stop for many migrants on the journey across the sea.

Dozens more Africans were aboard the vessel, according to ANSA, the Italian news agency.

Survivors of the journey told officials that three other people had died at sea, ANSA reported. They said a women died and fell into the water with her 4-month-old son, who drowned. In addition, survivors said a man passed out and fell into the water.

The Guardian reports that authorities on Malta had been alerted to the migrants’ situation at sea, but no rescue was dispatched. Prosecutors in Sicily have launched an investigation, the newspaper said.
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European Union officials pledged their unwavering support Friday to help Ukraine rebuild its infrastructure against Russia’s ongoing war, while the U.S. announced a fresh round of security assistance worth more than $2 billion.

Charles Michel, president of the European Council, and Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv for the 24th EU-Ukraine Summit. The EU officials said the union will support Ukraine “for as long as it takes.”

In a joint statement Friday, the officials promised to help rebuild Ukraine’s devastated critical infrastructure, providing energy support and services for the country “to get through the winter,” and beyond. They said that so far, the EU and its member states have provided assistance worth $570 million in the area of energy and reconstruction, and another $525 million for humanitarian efforts.

The officials underscored their commitment to promote Ukraine’s integration in the European Union, but they said there was no promise of fast-track membership.

Kyiv applied to become an EU member shortly after Russia’s invasion and wants to start formal accession talks as soon as possible.

“There are no rigid timelines, but there are goals that you have to reach,” von der Leyen told the news conference in response to a question about Ukraine’s accession drive. One of the conditions for Ukraine’s EU integration is its fight against corruption. The EU Commission president praised Kyiv for its expanded efforts to clamp down on graft.

Michel and von der Leyen condemned Russia’s escalating war against Ukraine and its citizens as “a manifest violation of international law, including the principles of the U.N. Charter.”

They emphasized the need to establish a Special Tribunal at The Hague for the investigation and prosecution of war crimes against Ukraine.

They also emphasized that the EU will never recognize as lawful any illegal annexation of Ukraine by Russia.

In addition, the EU officials unveiled a new package of sanctions, the 10th, against Russia. It will target the trade and technology that supports its war against Ukraine, von der Leyen said.

“With our partners, we must deny Russia the means to kill Ukrainian civilians and destroy homes and offices,” she said in a tweet.

US defense assistance

The United States announced Friday it would provide an additional $2.175 billion worth of military aid for Ukraine, including conventional and long-range rockets for U.S.-provided HIMARs, as well as other munitions and weapons. According to a U.S. official, the longer-range precision-guided rockets would double Ukraine’s strike range for the first time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Brigadier General Patrick Ryder told a news briefing Friday the package includes “critical air defense capabilities to help Ukraine defend its people, as well as armored infantry vehicles and more equipment that Ukraine is using so effectively, including Javelin anti-tank missiles, artillery ammunition.”

Ryder added that “as part of the USAI [Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative] package, we will be providing Ground Launched Small Diameter Bombs to Ukraine.”

Friday’s aid package opens the door to many more deliveries of Ground Launched Small Diameter Bombs, which have a range of 94 miles, according to a document reviewed by Reuters.

USAI is an authority under which the United States procures capabilities from industry rather than delivering equipment that is drawn down from Defense Department stocks. This announcement represents the beginning of a contracting process to provide additional capabilities to Ukraine’s Armed Forces as part of U.S. efforts to strengthen Ukraine’s military over the near and long-term.

In total, the United States has now supplied nearly $30 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden administration, the Defense Department reports. Since 2014, the United States has committed more than $32 billion in security assistance to Ukraine, and more than $29.3 billion since the beginning of Russia’s unprovoked, full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022.

Wagner Group recruitment

Meanwhile, Britain’s Defense Ministry said Friday the Wagner Group’s recruitment of convicts has dropped significantly. The ministry said the Russian Federal Penal Service experienced a decrease of 6,000 inmates since November. In comparison, the penal service had reported a drop of 23,000 inmates from September to November 2022.

“Wagner recruitment was likely a major contributing factor to this drop,” the British ministry said.  

The Ukrainian presidential office said overall in the last day, Russian shelling in Ukraine had killed at least eight civilians and wounded 29 others. 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse. 
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An Iranian government-backed hacking team allegedly stole and leaked private customer data belonging to French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, security researchers at Microsoft said Friday.

The magazine was hacked in early January after it published a series of cartoons that negatively depicted Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. The caricatures were part of a media campaign that Charlie Hebdo said was intended to support anti-government protests in the Islamic nation.

Representatives for the Iranian and French governments did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A press officer for Charlie Hebdo said the magazine had no comment on the matter “for the moment.”

Iran publicly vowed an “effective response” to the “insulting” cartoons, and summoned the French envoy in Tehran, while also ending activities of the French Institute of Research in Iran and saying it was re-evaluating France’s cultural activities in the country.

Hack part of larger operation

The hack-and-leak targeting Charlie Hebdo was part of a wider digital influence operation with techniques matching previously identified activity linked to Iranian state-backed hacking teams, Microsoft researchers said in a report. The group responsible is the same one that U.S. Department of Justice officials earlier identified as having conducted a “multi-faceted campaign” to interfere in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Microsoft said. Iran denied the claims at the time.

Amid Iran’s criticism of the Khamenei cartoons, a group of hackers calling itself “Holy Souls” posted on an online forum that they had access to the names and contact details of more than 200,000 Charlie Hebdo subscribers. In their post, they said they would sell the information for 20 bitcoins (approximately $470,000 USD).

A sample of the leaked data was later released and verified as authentic by the French newspaper Le Monde.

“This information, obtained by the Iranian actor, could put the magazine’s subscribers at risk for online or physical targeting by extremist organizations,” the Microsoft researchers said.

Twitter used to amplify reach

To amplify their operation, the Iranian hackers used Twitter accounts with fake or stolen identities to criticize the Khamenei cartoons. Two accounts impersonating a Charlie Hebdo editor and a technology executive also posted the leaked data before Twitter banned them, Microsoft said.

Twitter’s press team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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More than 200 years after Napoleon met defeat at Waterloo, the bones of soldiers killed on that famous battlefield continue to intrigue Belgian researchers and experts, who use them to peer back to that moment in history.

“So many bones — it’s really unique!” exclaimed one such historian, Bernard Wilkin, as he stood in front of a forensic pathologist’s table holding two skulls, three femurs and hip bones.

He was in an autopsy room in the Forensic Medicine Institute in Liege, eastern Belgium, where tests are being carried out on the skeletal remains to determine from which regions the four soldiers they belong to came from.

That in itself is a challenge.

Half a dozen European nationalities were represented in the military ranks at the Battle of Waterloo, located 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Brussels.

That armed clash of June 18, 1815 ended Napoleon Bonaparte’s ambitions of conquering Europe to build a great empire, and resulted in the deaths of around 20,000 soldiers.

The battle has since been pored over by historians, and — with advances in the genetic, medical and scanning fields — researchers can now piece together pages of the past from the remains buried in the ground.

Some of those remains have been recovered through archeological digs, such as one last year that allowed the reconstitution of a skeleton found not far from a field hospital the British Duke of Wellington had set up.

But the remains examined by Wilkin surfaced through another route.

‘Prussians in my attic’

The historian, who works for the Belgian government’s historical archives, said he gave a conference late last year and “this middle-aged man came to see afterwards and told me, ‘Mr Wilkin, I have some Prussians in my attic'”.

Wilkin, smiling, said the man “showed me photos on his phone and told me someone had given him these bones so he can put them on exhibit… which he refused to do on ethical grounds”.

The remains stayed hidden away until the man met Wilkin, who he believed could analyze them and give them a decent resting place.

A key item of interest in the collection is a right foot with nearly all its toes — that of a “Prussian soldier” according to the middle-aged man.

“To see a foot so well preserved is pretty rare, because usually the small bones on the extremities disappear into the ground,” noted Mathilde Daumas, an anthropologist at the Universite Libre de Bruxelles who is part of the research work.

As for the attributed “Prussian” provenance, the experts are cautious.

The place it was discovered was the village of Plancenoit, where troops on the Prussian and Napoleonic sides bitterly fought, Wilkin said, holding out the possibility the remains might be those of French soldiers.

Scraps of boots and metal buckles found among the remains do point to uniforms worn by soldiers from the Germanic side arrayed against the French.

But “we know that soldiers stripped the dead for their own gear,” the historian said.

Clothes and accessories are not reliable indicators of the nationality of skeletons found on the Waterloo battlefield, he stressed.

DNA testing

More dependable, these days, are DNA tests.

Dr Philippe Boxho, a forensic pathologist working on the remains, said there were still parts of the bones that should yield DNA results, and he believed another two months of analyses should yield answers.

“As long as the subject matter is dry we can do something. Our biggest enemy is humidity, which makes everything disintegrate,” he explained.

The teeth in particular, with traces of strontium, a naturally occurring chemical element that accumulates in human bones, can point to specific regions through their geology, he said.

Wilkin said an “ideal scenario” for the research would be to find that the remains of the “three to five” soldiers examined came from both the French and Germanic sides.
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A British man who broke into Windsor Castle Christmas Day 2021 and threatened Queen Elizabeth with a crossbow has pleaded guilty to treason charges Friday in a London court.

Appearing before London’s Old Bailey Court via video link, 21-year-old Jaswant Singh Chail of South Hampton pleaded guilty to an offense under the British Treason Act of 1842, and to threatening to kill the queen. Charges under the act are rare, the last person to plead guilty under the act was in 1981.

Prosecutors say Chail was arrested shortly after 8 a.m. Christmas Day 2021 by a royal protection officer on the private grounds of Windsor Castle. Queen Elizabeth, who died in September 2022 at age 96, then-Prince Charles and other family members were staying at the castle during the holidays. Chail was never near the royal family.

At the time of his arrest Chail was dressed in black clothing and wearing a hood, a metal mask, gloves and carrying a powerful crossbow. He reportedly told the protection officer, “I am here to kill the queen.”

Prosecutors said Chail had recorded a video and posted it to the social media platform Snapchat before he entered the grounds of the castle. In it, he said he was sorry for what he was about to do. He said it was revenge “for those who died in the 1919 massacre.”

He was apparently referring to an incident when British colonial troops opened fire on unarmed civilians protesting a colonial law in their holy city of Amritsar in northwestern India. Nearly 400 Sikh Indians were killed in what has become known as the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre. India has long demanded an apology for the incident.

In court Friday, Judge Jeremy Baker scheduled sentencing for Chail on March 31, and the court ordered medical reports regarding Chail’s mental state to be provided.

Some information for this report was provided by Reuters.
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The downfall of a convicted mafia killer, on the run since 2006, came about in a French pizza parlor.

Edgardo Greco was so confident in his alias as Paolo Dimitrio that he felt free to do an interview with a local Saint-Etienne newspaper in 2021 and even allowed the paper to take and publish a photograph of him.

Greco’s interview about the wonderful Italian cooking at his restaurant in the French newspaper was the beginning of the end for him. The 63-year-old mobster, alleged to be a member of the infamous ‘Ndrangheta organized crime mob, was convicted in an Italian court of the 1991 murders of two brothers whose bodies were never found and the attempted murder of another man.

Italian and French authorities worked together with Interpol, and Greco was identified and arrested.
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