U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is warning that if Russia is successful in Ukraine, China will be emboldened to use military force to expand its territory in the Indo-Pacific.

“We can’t live in that kind of world,” Austin told U.S. troops at a military installation in eastern Poland Tuesday after a surprise stop the day before in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.

“If you’re another autocrat, say China, and you want to take over more ground [and] more territory, and you saw what happened in Ukraine and there were no consequences to be paid, you’d feel pretty good about it,” Austin said.

Austin also warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin will continue his push to overrun sovereign democracies in eastern Europe if he isn’t shut down in Ukraine.

“Putin won’t stop if he takes Ukraine,” Austin said. “The next thing is he’s rolling across the Baltics … and the next thing you know, you and your comrades will be on the frontlines fighting against a Putin that we should have stopped, or Ukraine could have stopped early on.”

Austin comments echo many concerns voiced by NATO allies in eastern Europe since the invasion began. Eastern European nations like Estonia, Romania and Poland have hosted increasing numbers of U.S. troops and weaponry, while also building up their own defenses to deter Russian aggression.

Austin spoke with Poland’s Minister of Defense Mariusz Blaszczak while visiting the Polish base, which officials asked to remain unnamed because of the major role it plays in pushing U.S. and Western military aid into Ukraine.

“This matters, because people are trying to survive on the other end,” Austin said. “There are people dying every day.”

Austin’s trip to Kyiv on Monday was a display of Western solidarity amid increasing concerns that support for Ukraine could be waning as U.S. attention is directed to the conflict in the Middle East.

U.S. Congress has yet to fund additional assistance to Ukraine, which in turn has caused the Pentagon to start sending smaller military aid packages to Kyiv in an effort to make the funding they have left last longer.

During the visit, Austin announced a new U.S. aid package of up to $100 million from the Pentagon’s weapons stockpiles, including an additional HIMARS artillery rocket system and more munitions. Prior to the announcement, he spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and members of his cabinet about the immediate winter fight and planning for future security assistance.

Monday marked the defense secretary’s first visit to the Ukrainian capital since April 2022, shortly after the nearly two-year war began. Russia launched an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February of that year, calling the war a “special military operation.”

“We don’t want to live in a world where an autocrat can wake up and … take over his neighbor’s property,” Austin said Tuesday.

The U.S defense secretary will host another round of talks of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group virtually from the Pentagon on Wednesday. The Pentagon says more than 50 nations are expected to participate in the talks, which help Ukraine’s partners coordinate military aid sent to Kyiv.

Defense officials say the U.S. will provide a steady stream of security assistance throughout the winter, and Austin told reporters on Monday he expects the Ukrainians to be “aggressive” in the weeks ahead.
…

The European Union said on Tuesday a review of its development aid to Palestinians, ordered after the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, found no evidence of funds going to the militant group and that its assistance would continue.

The EU is the biggest provider of such aid to Palestinians. It has earmarked $1.3 billion for its programs for the period between 2021 and 2024.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive body, announced the review two days after Hamas militants attacked Israel from Gaza, killing 1,200 people and taking some 240 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Officials said the review was ordered as a precaution, not because they had any indications EU money was going to Hamas.

“The review found no indications of EU money having directly or indirectly benefited the terrorist organization Hamas,” said Commission Executive Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis.

Development aid is used for projects designed to have a long-term impact, such as paying the salaries of officials at the Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank, and the work of U.N. Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA.

It is separate from humanitarian aid, meant for urgent needs for essentials such as food, water and shelter.

“The review found that the control system in place has worked. As a result, payment to Palestinian beneficiaries and UNRWA will continue without any delays,” Dombrovskis told reporters.

The Commission said, however, that it would not proceed with plans to provide $82.5 million for Gaza infrastructure projects that were not “feasible in the current context.” That money will now go to other projects.

Israel launched heavy bombardment of Gaza after the October 7 attacks as part of a campaign to defeat Hamas.

The enclave’s Hamas-run government says at least 13,300 Palestinians have been confirmed killed — including at least 5,600 children — during Israel’s aerial blitz and invasion. 
…

A surge in the number of migrants making the treacherous journey from West Africa to the Spanish Canary Islands is straining local authorities, with human rights groups warning that many child migrants are being wrongly classed as adults by Spanish police, putting them at increased risk.  

So far this year, more than 32,000 migrants have arrived on the Canary Islands from West Africa – the highest number since 2006.

Unaccompanied children 

Fifteen-year-old Moussa Camara was orphaned following the 2021 coup in his home country of Guinea. He chose to escape, spending 11 days at sea in a wooden boat on the treacherous journey from Senegal to the Spanish island of Tenerife, along with 240 other migrants. For half that time, he had no food or water. Twenty people died on that crossing, he says, their bodies tossed over the side of the boat. 

Bearing sores from the sun, famished and dehydrated, Camara eventually arrived on Tenerife on October 27, 2021. But his ordeal was not over. Spanish authorities classified Camara and his friend as adults rather than children, meaning they were not allowed to stay at a center for minors or access the better opportunities available to those under 18. 

“At the center, we said we were fifteen years old. But they didn’t write that – they took us as if we were adults. But we are children, we are children – but they sent us here. They brought our papers. They betrayed us,” Camara told Reuters. 

Spanish police sent the two boys to Las Raices, an old military base in Tenerife’s mountains, where around 2,000 adult migrants await transfers to the mainland of Spain. 

Wrongly classified 

In a recent investigation, the human rights group Amnesty International interviewed 29 migrants on the Canary Islands. The group says 12 of them were under 18 years old but had been incorrectly classified as adults and were being held at adult detention centers, in breach of Spanish and international refugee laws. 

“This is very concerning because they were along with adults they weren’t related to and without the protection of the authorities. We were talking with one girl, she was 17, and she was detained for three days with men and women in a place without any oversight by the authorities. She was sleeping on the floor. And no one was asking about her needs,” said Amnesty’s Virginia Alvarez, who travelled to Tenerife and El Hierro between October 25 and 28. 

Legal rights 

The child migrants often had their belongings, including mobile phones, confiscated by the police. Most were not told of their legal rights, according to Alvarez. 

“If they are treated as adults, they can be expelled to their countries of origin. They are also leaving (state) protection. Sometimes they are transferred to the mainland and they are without protection, they are alone as minors in Spain or maybe they can travel to other European countries,” Alvarez said.  

A bone test is required to prove a migrant’s age but these can take months to arrange. Child migrants are given extra support to find residency and education until they reach 18 years old. However, if they are classified as adults, they receive little government help. 

Overwhelmed 

Local authorities say Spain’s central government isn’t doing enough to help. 

“They have left us with 4,700 minors, with NGOs and resources saturated, with difficulties because the screening of who is a minor and who is not a minor is not being done – it is taking at least three, four months. And you have adults in center for minors and minors in centers for adults. So, we have this difficulty,” said Fernando Clavijo, the president of the Canary Islands regional government. 

He said the European Union should do more to tackle the root causes of emigration from Africa. 

“Do you know what a mother or father has to go through to put their six-year-old or seven-year-old son in a cayuco [small wooden boat] with 200 or more people they don’t know, and throw them into the open sea at night? These people don’t do it for fun,” Clavijo told Reuters. 

EU demands 

Amnesty International is calling on the Spanish government and the European Union to make sure that child migrants are properly screened and to provide safer routes for refugees. 

The Spanish Public Prosecutor’s office told Reuters on November 14 that it had looked into 48 cases of suspected minors at the Las Raices camp in Tenerife. Of those migrants, four were confirmed as children, 30 were sent to a children’s facility pending age tests, and the other 14 were still in assessment. 
…

A surge in the number of migrants making the treacherous journey from West Africa to Spain’s Canary Islands is straining local authorities. Human rights groups say many child migrants are being wrongly classified as adults by Spanish police — putting them at increased risk. Henry Ridgwell reports.
…

An official from another key Western ally paid a surprise visit to Ukraine Tuesday while Russian forces continued to pound civilian infrastructure with missiles and drones.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius arrived in Kyiv a day after a visit by U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. 

Both men said their nations would help Ukraine during what is expected to be a long, cold, uncertain winter.

Germany is the second-biggest supplier of military assistance to Kyiv, behind the United States.

Pistorius’ second visit to Ukraine came during a commemoration of the country’s November 2013 pro-democracy uprising. 

“I am here again, firstly to pledge further support, but also to express our solidarity and deep bond and also our admiration for the courageous, brave and costly fight that is being waged here,” Pistorius said, laying flowers at Maidan square in central Kyiv. 

In his address Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy linked the 2013 demonstrations, which continued for months, to the war with Russia today.

“Ten years ago, people united not only against something, but above all for themselves. Everyone for everyone. All those who after the arbitrariness of force felt that they are also being beaten, that they are also hurt, that these are blows to justice and truth, to freedom, to our common tomorrow. 

“What will it be like if we remain silent, swallow it, and fear instead of fighting?” he said. “And then, in fact, the first victory in today’s war took place. The victory of non-indifference. The victory of courage. The victory of the Revolution of Dignity.”

Meanwhile, heavy Russian drone and missile attacks continued, damaging a hospital, a building at a mine and other civilian infrastructure.

“The central city hospital in the town of Selydove in the Donetsk region, the building of the Kotlyarevska mine and other civilian infrastructure were destroyed and damaged,” the Ukrainian military said in a statement.

In his visit Monday, Austin said the Pentagon would be sending an additional $100 million in weapons to Ukraine, including artillery and munitions for air defense systems. 

He said Ukraine’s effort to defeat Russian forces “matters to the rest of the world” and that U.S. support would continue “for the long haul.”

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

France’s Senate is this week to debate a draft law that would allow people convicted under anti-gay laws before 1982 to receive financial compensation.

Thousands of people were sentenced under two French laws in force between 1942 and 1982, one determining the age of consent for same-sex relations and the other defining such relations as an aggravating factor in acts of “public outrage.”

The sponsor of the bill to be debated on Wednesday, Senator Hussein Bourgi of the Socialist party, said he wanted the French government to recognize the state’s role in discriminating against people engaging in same-sex relations.

“This draft law has symbolic value,” he told AFP. 

“It aims to rectify an error that society committed at the time.”

The punishments meted out by the courts had “consequences that were much more serious than you might think today,” Bourgi said.

“People were crushed. Some lost their jobs or had to leave town,” he said.

Beyond the government’s recognition of wrongdoing, Bourgi said he also wanted an independent commission to manage financial compensation of 10,000 euros ($11,000) for each victim.

Antoine Idier, a sociologist and historian, called the initiative “salutary” but added that focusing on two laws of the period made it too restrictive.

“Judges employed a much wider judicial arsenal to repress homosexuality,” he said, including laws that were not specifically aimed at same-sex relations but at “moral failings” or “inciting minors to commit depravity.”

• ‘Hunting gays down’ –

Michel Chomarat, now 74, was arrested in 1977 during a police raid on a gay bar called “Le Manhattan.”

“Homophobia by the state consisted in hunting gays down everywhere,” he told AFP.

The bar was a private space with restricted access “but even so, police took us away in handcuffs and accused us of public moral outrage,” he said.

Chomarat said the draft law came “too late” because many people entitled to compensation had already died.

In an op-ed piece in LGBTQ magazine Tetu in June, activists, unionists and civil servants had already called for a recognition and rehabilitation of victims of anti-gay repression.

“One of the reasons why homophobia persists in today’s society is that state laws, rules and practices legitimized such discrimination in the past,” said Joel Deumier, co-president of SOS Homophobie, a non-profit organization defending lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex rights.

For Bourgi’s text to become law, first the Senate (the upper house of parliament) and then the National Assembly (the lower house) have to vote in favor.

During this process there are often negotiations about the final wording of a bill to make it acceptable to both houses. 

There is precedent for the French initiative elsewhere in Europe.

Germany decided in 2017 to rehabilitate and compensate around 50,000 men condemned on the basis of “paragraph 175”, a 19th-century law criminalizing homosexuality that was broadened by Nazi Germany and repealed only in 1994.

Austria is elaborating a similar approach, to become law next year.

‘Brought disgrace’

In Britain, where male anal sex became punishable by death under the Buggery Act of 1533, sexual relations between men were decriminalized in England and Wales in 1967, and later in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

But this was only if the sexual relations occurred in private and the people involved were over 21.

Under a recent “disregard and pardons scheme,” people in Britain can get a historic conviction for gay sex offenses removed from police and court records.

This includes convictions for “buggery,” “gross indecency” and “procuring others to commit homosexual acts” — all since abolished — but not sexual activity in a public toilet, which is still an offense. 

Regis Schlagdenhauffen, a social science professor at the EHESS school in Paris, said his research suggested that at least 10,000 people had been condemned for homosexuality in France between 1942 and 1982, mostly men from working-class backgrounds.

A third of them was married and a quarter had children, he said.

“Those condemnations brought disgrace and were a terrible experience to live through,” said Schlagdenhauffen.

This was the reason why many victims of state repression might not come forward, he said, preferring not to revisit the traumatic experience.
…

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin made a visit to Ukraine Monday to reassure Ukrainian leaders the United States will continue to support the country in its fight against Russia. It was Austin’s first visit to the Ukrainian capital since April 2022, and the first time members of the press accompanied him since the war began. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb is traveling with the secretary and has more from Kyiv.
…

Two Ukrainian senior cyber defense officials were fired Monday for alleged embezzlement in the government’s cybersecurity agency, a government official said.

Yurii Shchyhol, head of the State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection (SSSCIP) of Ukraine, and his deputy, Viktor Zhora, were dismissed by the government, senior cabinet official Taras Melnychuk wrote on Telegram.

Melnychuk, the cabinet’s representative to parliament, did not give the reason for the dismissals. Shchyhol wrote on Facebook that he was confident he could prove his innocence, Interfax Ukraine reported. There was no immediate comment from Zhora.

The SSSCIP is responsible for securing government communications and defending the state from cyberattacks.

Anti-corruption prosecutors announced they were investigating the head and deputy head of the SSSCIP over their alleged roles in a six-person plot to embezzle 62 million Ukrainian hryvnia ($1.72 million) between 2020 and 2022.

Authorities suspect the officials of buying software at an inflated price from two companies allegedly under their control in a sale that had been closed to other bidders, Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau said.

In a statement on Telegram, the SSSCIP said it was cooperating with investigators and that all agency procurement had been carried out legally. 

Last September, Shchyhol told Reuters that Russian spies were using hackers to target computer systems at law enforcement agencies to identify and obtain evidence related to alleged Russian war crimes.

Ukraine has increased its efforts to stomp out corruption as it pursues membership in the European Union, which has made the fight against graft a key prerequisite for negotiations to begin.

Polish protests 

Kyiv hopes to negotiate with Poland and the European Commission this week about Ukraine’s export of goods through Polish routes. 

About 3,000 mostly Ukrainian trucks were stuck on the Polish side of the border Sunday morning due to a lengthy blockade by Polish truckers, Ukrainian authorities said.

Earlier this month, Polish truckers blocked roads to three border crossings with Ukraine to protest what they see as government inaction over a loss of business to foreign competitors since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

Truckers from Ukraine have been exempted from seeking permits to cross the Polish border since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Polish truckers want a limited number of licenses to be issued for Ukrainian truckers, a demand Kyiv said it would not consider.

“This week we hope to have negotiations in a trilateral format,” Taras Kachka, a Ukrainian trade representative, said in televised comments Monday.

He said the blockages may affect critical supplies of energy resources for Ukraine, which is suffering from constant Russian attacks.

Russian shelling increases 

Russian shelling killed three people Monday and damaged power lines and a gas pipeline in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk and southern Kherson regions, authorities said.

An elderly woman was killed, and a man injured in a Russian artillery strike on the town of Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk’s governor Serhiy Lysak wrote on Telegram messenger.

On Monday morning, two drivers were killed when Russian forces shelled a private transport company parking lot in Kherson, regional Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said.

Russian drones have increased their attacks on Kyiv targeting Ukrainian infrastructure as the winter is approaching.

Russia launched 20 Iranian-made Shahed drones, targeting the Ukrainian capital and the Cherkasy and Poltava regions, according to a military statement.

Ukrainian anti-aircraft systems shot down 15 of the drones. 

Ukraine’s Military Administration spokesperson, Serhii Popko, said that the drones attacked Kyiv from different directions in waves that were “constantly changing vectors.” 

In his nightly video address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin for his pledge of $100 million in new military aid to Ukraine.

“There is a new defense package for our country from the United States. I am grateful for it. In particular, there will be more artillery – shells that are needed right now,” said Zelenskyy. 

The Ukrainian president also stressed talks on expanding cross-border cooperation with Bulgaria, Romania and Moldova. “This includes the work of the maritime corridor, the Danube export cluster and the overall trade turnover between our countries,” he said.

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

Innovations in food production could alleviate hunger for millions of people, according to Britain, which hosted a global summit on food insecurity Monday. Critics say the focus on technology ignores the real driver of food shortages – growing inequality and poverty. Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
…

Innovations in food production could alleviate hunger for millions of people, according to Britain, which hosted a global summit on food insecurity Monday, but critics say the focus on technology ignores the growing inequality of wealth.

The summit was a joint initiative between Britain, Somalia, the United Arab Emirates, the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, aimed at boosting food security through science and innovation.

Innovation hub

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said a renewed focus was needed to alleviate hunger.

“It can’t be right that today in 2023, almost 1 billion people across the world regularly do not have enough to eat, that millions face hunger and starvation, and over 45 million children under five are suffering acute malnutrition. In a world of abundance, no one should die from lack of food and no parent should ever have to watch their child starve,” Sunak told delegates in London.

He outlined Britain’s plans to host a “virtual hub” for innovation in food production, known as CGIAR (Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research), aimed at making global food systems more resilient to future shocks in a changing climate.

“We’ve already helped develop crops that are drought-resistant and even richer in vitamins, now feeding 100 million people across Africa. And we’re going further, launching a new U.K. CGIAR science center to drive cutting-edge research on flood-tolerant rice, disease-resistant wheat and much more. These innovations will reach millions across the poorest countries, as well as improving U.K. crop yields and driving down food prices,” Sunak said.

Somalia emergency

Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud also addressed the summit, telling delegates that the country’s stabilization program, developed in partnership with Britain, was working on tackling his country’s humanitarian crisis.

Somalia is among the countries worst-hit by climate change and food insecurity. The government recently declared a state of emergency after 113,000 people were forced to flee their homes following extreme rainfall and extensive flooding, which also caused widespread damage to crops and farmland. The floods come a year after Somalia suffered its worst drought in 40 years.

Technological solutions

Can new technology end global food insecurity, like that endured by Somalia and many other poorer nations? It’s one tool in the box, said analyst Steve Wiggins, a food security specialist at the ODI development think tank.

“The fundamentals of global hunger are the fundamentals of poverty, marginalization, and people being in situations of extraordinary vulnerability. Those are the fundamentals of hunger and that’s what we have to drive towards,” he told VOA.

“Of course, there are technical advances that we get that we’re very happy for, which make things a little bit easier,” Wiggins added, highlighting innovations like solar-powered irrigation in Mali. “So, if you want to pump water onto your fields, it’s becoming increasingly easy without having to spend money on diesel to do so.”

Inequalities

Critics say the focus on technology ignores the main driver of food insecurity.

“This summit is welcome. I think some of the solutions are welcome. But I think it’s not going to be enough to tackle that huge problem of hunger, which has been with us for decades and which we seem to be going backwards in many steps,” said Nick Nisbett of the Institute of Development Studies.

“Technological solutions tend to focus on the supply side, so new tech for agriculture and supply chains and so on. But what we actually need to do is to tackle the inequalities that lie behind that hunger.”

“Possibly the simplest thing to do is actually to give people food or to give people the money to [go] out and buy and purchase food in [the] markets themselves,” Nisbett told VOA.
…

Finland’s prime minister said Monday the country may need to take further actions on its border with Russia after closing four border crossings to stem a recent increase in asylum-seekers.

Finland, which joined NATO this year in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has accused Moscow of letting migrants from the Middle East and Africa without valid travel documents through to the Finnish border. The government closed the border crossings in southeastern Finland last week, but new migrant arrivals were reported at border checkpoints farther north.

“The situation has progressed in a bad direction,” Prime Minister Petteri Orpo was quoted as saying by Finnish public broadcaster YLE during a visit to the Vartius border crossing in east-central Finland. “If there is no change, we will take more measures, and if necessary, quickly. The message is clear that we do not accept this behavior.”

He did not rule out closing more border crossings along the 1,340-kilometer (830-mile) Finnish-Russian border.

YLE said 500 asylum-seekers have arrived in Finland in November, significantly more than normal.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said the decision to close border crossings would “aggravate” Russian-Finnish relations and criticized as a “pretext” Finland’s claim that Russia has been helping undocumented migrants to cross the border. A Foreign Ministry statement said the decision “violates the rights and interests of tens of thousands of citizens of our countries.”

European Union and NATO countries bordering Russia and Belarus have accused those countries of deliberately ushering migrants toward border zones as a type of “hybrid warfare.”
…

Russia has placed a Ukrainian singer who won the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest on its wanted list, state news agencies reported Monday.

The reports said an Interior Ministry database listed singer Susana Jamaladinova as being sought for violating a criminal law.

The independent news site Mediazona, which covers opposition and human rights issues, said Jamaladinova was charged under a law adopted last year that bans spreading so-called fake information about the Russian military and the ongoing fighting in Ukraine.

Jamaladinova, who performs under the stage name Jamala, is of Crimean Tatar descent. She won the 2016 Eurovision contest with the song “1944,” a title that refers to the year the Soviet Union deported Crimean Tatars en masse.

Her winning performance came almost exactly two years after Russia annexed Crimea as political turmoil gripped Ukraine. Most other countries regard the annexation as illegitimate.

Russia protested “1944” being allowed in the competition, saying it violated rules against political speech in Eurovision. But the song made no specific criticism of Russia or the Soviet Union, although it drew such implications, opening with the lyrics “When strangers are coming, they come to your house, they kill you all and say ‘We’re not guilty.'”
…

Verdicts are expected Monday in the trial of hundreds of people accused of membership in Italy’s ’ndrangheta organized crime syndicate, one of the world’s most powerful, extensive and wealthy drug-trafficking groups.

The trial started almost three years ago in the southern Calabria region, where the mob organization was originally based. The ’ndrangheta quietly amassed power in Italy and abroad as the Sicilian Mafia lost influence.

The syndicate now holds almost a monopoly on cocaine importation in Europe, according to anti-mafia prosecutors who led the investigation in southern Italy. The organization also has bases in North and South America and is active in Africa, Italian prosecutors maintain, and ’ndrangheta figures have been arrested in recent years around Europe and in Brazil and Lebanon.

The trial took place in a specially constructed high-security bunker. Part of an industrial park in Lamezia Terme, the bunker is so vast that video screens were anchored to the ceiling so participants could view the proceedings.

More than 320 defendants are charged with crimes that include drug and arms trafficking, extortion and mafia association, a term in Italy’s penal code for members of organized crime groups. Others are charged with acting in complicity with the ’ndrangheta without actually being a member.

The charges grew out of an investigation of 12 clans linked to a convicted ‘ndrangheta boss. The central figure, Luigi Mancuso, served 19 years in Italian prison for his role in leading what investigators allege is one of the ‘ndrangheta’s most powerful crime families, based in the town of Vibo Valentia.

Based almost entirely on blood ties, the ‘ndrangheta was substantially immune to turncoats for decades, but the ranks of those turning state’s evidence are becoming more substantial. In the current trial, they include a relative of Mancuso’s.

Several dozen informants in the case came from the ‘ndrangheta, while others formerly belonged to Sicily’s Cosa Nostra.

Despite the large number of defendants, the trial wasn’t Italy’s biggest one involving alleged mobsters.

In 1986, 475 alleged members of the Sicilian Mafia went on trial in a similarly constructed bunker in Palermo. The proceedings resulted in more than 300 convictions and 19 life sentences. That trial helped reveal many of the brutal methods and murderous strategies of the island’s top mob bosses, including sensational killings that bloodied the Palermo area during years of power struggles.

In contrast, the trial involving the ‘ndrangheta was aimed at securing convictions and sentences based on alleged acts of collusion among mobsters and local politicians, public officials, businessmen and members of secret lodges to show how deeply rooted the syndicate is in Calabria.

“The relevance (of this trial) is enormous,” Italian lawmaker former anti-mafia chief prosecutor and lawmaker Federico Cafiero De Raho, a former chief anti-mafia prosecutor, told The Associated Press in an interview. “First of all, because every trial against the ‘ndrangheta gives a very significant message to the territory, which is not only the Calabrian one, but the national territory.”

“But it has repercussions also at a European and world level, because the ‘ndrangheta is one of the strongest organizations in the world, able to manage the international traffic of narcotics, as well as many other activities,” Cafiero De Raho added.

Awash in cocaine trafficking revenues, the ’ndrangheta has gobbled up hotels, restaurants, pharmacies, car dealerships and other businesses throughout Italy, especially in Rome and the country’s affluent north, criminal investigations have revealed.

The buying spree spread across Europe as the syndicate sought to launder illicit revenues but also to make “clean” money by running legitimate businesses, including in the tourism and hospitality sectors, investigators alleged.

“Arrests allow their activities to be halted for a time, but the investigations determine the need for further investigations each time,” Cafiero De Raho said.
…

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin slipped unannounced into Kyiv on Monday in a brazen display of Western solidarity to reassure Ukrainian leaders that the United States will continue to support their country’s fight against Russia’s invasion.

Austin was greeted at the train station in Kyiv by the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink, and the U.S. defense attache, Brigadier General Kipling Kahler, and joined on the trip by U.S. General Christopher Cavoli, who serves as the NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe and the head of U.S. European Command.

Senior U.S. defense officials said Austin came to Kyiv to discuss the immediate winter fight and to plan for future security assistance.

“We are continuing to provide a regular battle rhythm of security assistance, and we are planning to be able to do that throughout the winter,” said a senior defense official who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity due to security concerns for the trip.

The visit, Austin’s first since April 2022, comes as the onset of winter has Ukrainian and Western officials convinced that Russian President Vladimir Putin will resume targeting critical infrastructure as he did last winter, leaving many Ukrainians without power on some of the coldest days of the year.

“One of the most important capabilities this winter will be air defense,” a second senior defense official told reporters traveling with Austin, and speaking under the same conditions of anonymity. “We’ve been able to surge air defense equipment, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t still needs and that there won’t still be needs in the coming months ahead.”

An onslaught of nearly 40 Iranian-made drones launched from Russian territory bombarded Ukrainian air defenses over the weekend.

Ukraine said its forces destroyed 29 of the 38 drones, but those that made it through Ukraine’s defenses struck multiple infrastructure facilities and caused power outages in more than 400 towns and villages throughout the country.

The drones attacked from the Odesa and Zaporizhzhia regions in the south, to the Chernihiv region in the north, near the border with Belarus. They also targeted Kyiv in the second attack so far this month, but all drones heading to the capital were shot down, Ukrainian officials said.

The Pentagon will continue to draw down from its current weapons and ammunition stockpiles to support Ukraine, but officials say that over the coming months, the United States also will be sending Ukraine a number of capabilities that were procured last year through contracting. Ammunition supplies have also increased, according to officials, due to Western improvements in production capacity.

Other countries say they are also surging capabilities, with Germany announcing earlier this month that it would deliver more crucial air defense systems by the end of this year.

In addition to air defense, officials hope to deny Russian forces an opportunity this winter to fortify their positions. Last winter, Russian fighters capitalized on a lull in the fighting by digging in on territory they controlled, causing some analysts to refer to the fight as a “stalemate.”

“I wouldn’t call it a stalemate. No. This is a dynamic battle,” a senior defense official said. “Ukraine continues to push and succeed on the battlefield against Russian forces. You’ve seen them continue to strike further behind Russian lines. … They are making inroads in disrupting Russian operations, in degrading Russian capabilities.”

The official pointed to the recent Ukrainian offensive in the Kherson region as an example of Ukraine’s ability “to create a disadvantage for Russian forces in an area where, frankly, their defenses are thinner.”

Ukrainian troops last week pushed Russian soldiers out of positions on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River and established several bridgeheads. Crossing the river with heavy equipment and supplies could give Ukrainian forces the opportunity to open a new line of attack on the most direct land route to Crimea, which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014.

Although Moscow’s forces still control about 18% of Ukrainian land, the Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S., Oksana Markarova, told VOA last month that Kyiv’s forces had taken back more than 50% of its invaded territory.

The surprise visit to Kyiv also comes as Western support is at risk of wavering, especially as events in Israel and Gaza in the last month divert attention from the prolonged conflict in Europe.

Austin will host another round of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group virtually from the Pentagon this week. The Pentagon says more than 50 nations are expected to participate in the talks, which help Ukraine’s partners coordinate military aid sent to Kyiv.

There has been a growing reluctance in the U.S. Congress to send more military aid to Ukraine, although senior defense officials still point to “clear bipartisan support” for Ukrainian security assistance when speaking to their concerned Ukrainian counterparts.

“We continue to believe that Congress will provide that support, and we are planning based on that conviction,” said a senior defense official, while also acknowledging that should support for Ukraine aid change, the administration would have to reassess some of the longer-term military procurements planned for Kyiv.

The Pentagon has remained just as active on securing aid for Ukraine as it was before the conflict erupted in the Middle East because “Ukraine matters,” another senior defense official said.

“I keep hearing people, you know, coming up to me saying, ‘Oh, I guess you’re not as busy as before.’ That could not be further from the truth, and this trip is a testament to that,” the senior defense official added.
…

Russia launched several waves of drone attacks on Kyiv early Sunday for the second night in row, stepping up its assaults on the Ukrainian capital after several weeks of pause, the city’s military administration said.

“The enemy’s UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) were launched in many groups and attacked Kyiv in waves, from different directions, at the same time constantly changing the vectors of movement along the route,” Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, said on the Telegram messaging app. 

Ukraine’s air force said its air defense systems destroyed 15 of 20 Russia-launched Shahed kamikaze drones over Kyiv, Poltava and Cherkasy regions.

In Kherson five people including a 3-year-old girl were injured by Russian artillery shelling Sunday morning, Ukrainian Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said.

“All of them sustained shrapnel wounds. The child and the grandmother were walking in the yard. Enemy artillery hit them near the entrance,” Klymenko said on the Telegram messaging app.

Russian troops abandoned Kherson and the western bank of the Dnipro River in the region late last year, but now regularly shell those areas from positions on the eastern bank.

Ukraine’s military said on social media Friday that it had gained “a foothold on several bridgeheads” on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River, near the southern city of Kherson. 

Ukrainian troops are trying to push Russian forces away from the Dnipro to stop them from shelling civilian areas on the Ukrainian-held west bank, the general staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said in a report Friday.  

Russia conceded that Ukrainian forces had claimed back some territory on the opposing bank.  

Teen returns to Ukraine

A Ukrainian teenager who was taken to Russia from the occupied city of Mariupol during the war and prevented from leaving Russia earlier this year, returned to Ukraine Sunday.

Bohdan Yermokhin, an orphan from the Ukrainian city of Mariupol that was captured by Moscow’s troops during the first year of the war, had been taken to Russia and placed in a foster family in the Moscow region.

Yermokhin, who turned 18 Sunday, appealed to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy this month to help bring him back to Ukraine.

“This is a very pleasant gift, to put it in the right way. The emotions are overwhelming, all good, with the notion that Ukraine needs me,” he said.

Zelenskyy welcomed Yermokhin’s return in his nightly video address.

“Many attempts were made to help him. I am happy everything worked out,” he said, expressing thanks to Ukrainian officials, international organizations, and particularly the U.N. Children’s Fund, UNICEF, and authorities in Qatar for help in mediation.

Twenty-thousand children have been illegally transferred to Russia since the invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, with some being put up for adoption. Kyiv says this is a war crime, an allegation denied by Russia, which says it was protecting children in a war zone. 

Ukraine – EU

About 3,000 mostly Ukrainian trucks were stuck on the Polish side of the border Sunday morning due to a blockade lasting more than 10-days by Polish truckers, Ukrainian authorities said.

Polish truckers earlier this month blocked roads to three border crossings with Ukraine to protest what they see as government inaction over a loss of business to foreign competitors since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

“For over 10 days, Ukrainian drivers have been blocked at the Polish border. Thousands of people are forced to live in difficult conditions with limited food, water and fuel,” Oleksandr Kubrakov, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, said on X, formerly Twitter.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters. 

 
…

An orphaned Ukrainian teenager who was taken to Russia last year during the war in his country returned home after being reunited with relatives in Belarus on his 18th birthday Sunday.

Bohdan Yermokhin was pictured embracing family members in Minsk in photographs shared on social media by Russia’s children’s rights ombudswoman, Maria Lvova-Belova.

Andrii Yermak, the head of the Ukrainian president’s office, confirmed that Yermokhin had arrived back in Ukraine and shared a photo of him with a Ukrainian flag. Yermak thanked UNICEF and Qatari negotiators for facilitating Yermokhin’s return.

Yermokhin’s parents died two years ago, before Russia invaded Ukraine. Early in the war, he was taken from the port city of Mariupol, where he lived with a cousin who was his legal guardian, placed with a foster family in the Moscow region and given Russian citizenship, according to Ukrainian lawyer Kateryna Bobrovska.

Bobrovska, who represents the teenager and his 26-year-old cousin, Valeria Yermokhina, previously told The Associated Press that Yermokhin repeatedly expressed the desire to go home and had talked daily about “getting to Ukraine, to his relatives.”

Yermokhin was one of thousands of Ukrainian children taken to Russia from occupied regions of Ukraine. The practice prompted the International Criminal Court in March to accuse Russian President Vladimir Putin and children’s rights ombudswoman Lvova-Belova of committing war crimes.

The court in The Hague, Netherlands, issued warrants for Putin and Lvova-Belova’s arrests, saying they found “reasonable grounds to believe” the two were responsible for the illegal deportation and transfer of children from Ukraine.

The Kremlin has dismissed the warrants as null and void. Lvova-Belova has argued that the children were taken to Russia for their safety, not abducted — a claim widely rejected by the international community. Nevertheless, the children’s rights ombudswoman announced in a Nov. 10 online statement that Yermokhin would be allowed to return to Ukraine via a third country.

The teenager reportedly tried to return home on his own earlier this year. Lvova-Belova told reporters in April that Russian authorities caught Yerkmohin near Russia’s border with Belarus on his way to Ukraine. The ombudswoman argued that he was being taken there “under false pretenses.”

Before he was allowed to leave Russia, lawyer Bobrovska described an urgent need for Yermokhin to return to Ukraine before his 18th birthday, when he would become eligible for conscription into the Russian army. The teenager had received two official notices to attend a military enlistment office in Russia, although officials later said he had only been summoned for record-keeping purposes.

Last month, Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said in his Telegram channel that a total of 386 children have been brought back to Ukraine from Russia. “Ukraine will work until it returns everyone to their homeland,” Lubinets stressed.
…

About 3,000 mostly Ukrainian trucks were stuck on the Polish side of the border as of Sunday morning due to a more than 10-day blockade by Polish truckers, Ukrainian authorities said.

Polish truckers earlier this month blocked roads to three border crossings with Ukraine to protest against what they see as government inaction over a loss of business to foreign competitors since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Ukrainian officials said last week Kyiv and Warsaw had again failed to reach an agreement to stop the protest.

“For over 10 days, Ukrainian drivers have been blocked at the Polish border. Thousands of people are forced to live in difficult conditions with limited food, water and fuel,” Oleksandr Kubrakov, Deputy Ukraine’s Prime Minister, said on X, formerly Twitter.

He said trucks were backed up more than 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) toward the Yahodyn crossing, more than 10 kilometers toward Rava-Ruska, and more than 16 kilometers toward the Krakivets crossing.

According to the Ukrainian Infrastructure Ministry, an average of 40,000-50,000 trucks cross the border with Poland per month via eight existing crossings, twice as many as before the war. Most of the goods are carried by Ukraine’s transport fleet.

Now only a few vehicles per hour are going through the Polish border at blocked checkpoints, Ukrainian border guards say.

Ukrainian grain brokers said last week Ukraine’s shipments of food by road decreased 2.7% in the first 13 days of November due to difficulties on the Polish border caused by a drivers’ strike.

Spike Brokers, which regularly tracks export statistics, said that the passage of vehicles through customs checkpoints on the border with Poland decreased to 4,000 tons of cargo per day, compared to the peak of 7,500 tons per day a month earlier.
…

A hat belonging to Napoleon Bonaparte when he was French emperor sold for a record of nearly two million euros at a French auction on Sunday, the auction house said.

It went for 1.932 million euros ($2.1 million) — breaking the previous record for a Napoleonic hat, held by the same auction house, of 1.884 million euros in 2014 shelled out by a South Korean businessman.

The hat, known as a bicorne, is in Napoleon’s trademark colors — black, with the French flag’s colors blue-white-red as insignia — and attracted interest from collectors “the world over”, auctioneers Osenat said, declining to give the identity or nationality of the eventual buyer.

It was last owned by businessman Jean-Louis Noisiez, who died last year.

Other Napoleon memorabilia from the Noisiez collection also went on the block, including a Legion of Honor medal and a pair of silver spurs owned by Napoleon.

The final price for the hat, including all charges, was more than double the estimate of 600,000 to 800,000 euros, and nearly four times the reserve price, the auction house based in Fontainebleau, south of Paris, said.

Napoleon is believed to have owned around 120 such hats in total over 15 years, most of which are now lost.

“The hat in itself represented the emperor’s image,” auction house expert Jean-Pierre Osenat told AFP ahead of the sale.

‘A romantic’

Napoleon wore this particular hat towards the middle of his time as emperor, according to the auction house.

Unlike most other officers at the time, Napoleon wore his hat sideways, which gave him a distinct silhouette easily recognized by his troops in battle.

Napoleon rose to prominence during the French Revolution, becoming a key figure in the revolutionary wars.

He served the republic as first consul, and had himself crowned as emperor in 1804.

He was exiled in 1815 after losing the battle against British and Prussian forces at Waterloo.

He died in 1821 on the island of Saint Helena in the Atlantic Ocean.

Sunday’s hat sale comes only days before a biopic on Napoleon reaches cinemas worldwide.

The film, by Ridley Scott, features massive-scale battles across Europe but also portrays his complex relationship with his wife Josephine.

Joaquin Phoenix, who plays Napoleon in the movie, said of the late emperor that he was “socially awkward”, but also a “romantic.”

Phoenix told AFP in an interview that there had been “something almost endearing” about Napoleon, except that he was “also responsible for the deaths of millions of people.”

Research for the movie was complicated by the vastly different accounts that have come down through the centuries.

“It’s very hard to get a clear answer about many things,” said Phoenix, who said his interest was in finding “inspiration more than information”, through details like how Napoleon ate and drank.
…

Gale-force winds and heavy rain and snow hit large parts of Bulgaria Sunday, claiming the lives of two people, causing severe damage and disrupting the power supply in towns and villages, officials said Sunday.

Residents in eastern Bulgaria, that was hit hardest by the storm said they had never experienced such weather.

A state of emergency has been declared in the Black Sea city of Varna, where officials said the extreme weather poses serious risks to the population. The port city was struck by gale-force winds and torrential rain mixed with snow.

The mayor’s office reported that the power supply is disrupted in all boroughs of Varna, key roads are blocked by fallen trees and branches, leaving vehicles stranded. It called on citizens to stay at home and not to use their cars except in urgent cases.

Varna International Airport was open, but there were delayed and canceled flights, airport officials said.

On Saturday, police reported that a man had died after his van hit a fallen tree on a major boulevard in the capital, Sofia, while in Varna, a woman died instantly after being struck by a falling tree branch.

Bulgarian meteorologists issued warnings for dangerous weather for most of eastern Bulgaria on Sunday, with winds gusting up to 125 kph (78 mph). The heavy rain is expected to turn into snow due to falling temperatures.
…

A German lawmaker who serves as the political sponsor of Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi has welcomed the release on bail of the dissident artist but warned he is still at risk as all charges against him are still pending.

“While it is certainly a positive development that Toomaj is no longer in prison, it is essential for me to caution against excessive jubilation because the actions of the Iranian regime are unpredictable, lawmaker Ye-One Rhie told VOA. “They might detain him again next week, or they may never arrest him again. It is imperative for everyone to temper their joy and to remain mindful of Toomaj and other prisoners.”

An outspoken rapper, Toomaj Salehi was jailed in connection with anti-government protests that erupted in 2022. He had been sentenced to six years in prison on charges of “corruption on earth.” His lawyer told Iran’s reformist newspaper Shargh that upon appeal, the Supreme Court found “flaws” in the initial sentence and ordered him to be freed on bail.

Like thousands of other mostly young Iranians, Salehi embraced a widespread anti-government protest movement that began last September following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of Iran’s morality police. She was arrested allegedly for violating Iran’s strict Islamic dress code.

In the days before Salehi’s arrest in October 2022, he posted videos of himself on Instagram participating in peaceful street demonstrations and urging others to do the same.

Ye-One Rhie underscored her unwavering support for Toomaj.

“Consider the challenges this man has faced during this time, particularly in the past year. I hold the utmost respect for him,” she said. “I will stand by him in every possible way, maintaining this support until the end, and I am aware that numerous others will persist in providing their support as well.”

Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse.
…

Pope Francis’ recent gesture of welcome for transgender Catholics has resonated strongly in a working class, seaside town south of Rome, where a community of trans women has found help and hope through a remarkable relationship with the pontiff forged during the darkest times of the pandemic.

Thanks to the local parish priest, these women now make monthly visits to Francis’ Wednesday general audiences, where they are given VIP seats. On any given day, they receive handouts of medicine, cash and shampoo. When COVID-19 struck, the Vatican bused them into its health facility so they could be vaccinated ahead of most Italians.

On Sunday, these women — many of whom are Latin American migrants and work as prostitutes — will join over 1,000 other poor and homeless people in the Vatican auditorium as Francis’ guests for lunch to mark the Catholic Church’s World Day of the Poor. For the marginalized trans community of Torvaianica, it is just the latest gesture of inclusion from a pope who has made reaching out to the LGBTQ+ community a hallmark of his papacy, in word and deed.

“Before, the church was closed to us. They didn’t see us as normal people, they saw us as the devil,” said Andrea Paola Torres Lopez, a Colombian transgender woman known as Consuelo, whose kitchen is decorated with pictures of Jesus. “Then Pope Francis arrived and the doors of the church opened for us.”

Francis’ latest initiative was a document from the Vatican’s doctrine office asserting that, under some circumstances, transgender people can be baptized and can serve as godparents and witnesses in weddings. It followed another recent statement from the pope himself that suggested same-sex couples could receive church blessings.

In both cases, the new pronouncements reversed the absolute bans on transgender people serving as godparents issued by the Vatican doctrine office in 2015, and on same-sex blessings announced in 2021.

Prominent LGBTQ+ organizations have welcomed Francis’ message of inclusivity, given gay and transgender people have long felt ostracized and discriminated against by a church that officially teaches that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered.”

Starting from his famous “Who am I to judge” comment in 2013 about a purportedly gay priest, to his assertion in January that “being homosexual is not a crime,” Francis has evolved his position to increasingly make clear that everyone — “todos, todos, todos” — is a child of God, is loved by God and welcome in the church.

That judgment-free position is not necessarily shared by the rest of the Catholic Church. The recent Vatican gathering of bishops and laypeople, known as a synod, backed off language explicitly calling for welcoming LGBTQ+ Catholics. Conservative Catholics, including cardinals, have strongly questioned his approach. And a 2022 Pew Research Center analysis showed most U.S. Catholics, or 62%, believe that whether a person is a man or woman is determined by the sex assigned at birth, while only a minority, 37%, said it can change.

After his latest statement about trans participation in church sacraments, GLAAD and DignityUSA said Francis’ tone of inclusion would send a message to political and cultural leaders to end their persecution, exclusion and discrimination against transgender people.

For the trans community in Torvaianica, it was a more personal message, a concrete sign that the pope knew them, had heard their stories and wanted to let them know that they were part of his church.

Carla Segovia, a 46-year-old Argentine sex worker, said for transgender women like herself, being a godparent is the closest thing she will ever get to having a child of her own. She said that the new norms made her feel more comfortable about maybe one day returning fully to the faith that she was baptized in but fell away from after coming out as trans.

“This norm from Pope Francis brings me closer to finding that absolute serenity,” she said, which she feels is necessary to be fully reconciled with the faith.

Claudia Vittoria Salas, a 55-year-old transgender tailor and house cleaner, said she had already served as a godparent to three of her nieces and nephews back home in Jujuy, in northern Argentina. She choked up as she recalled that her earnings from her former work as a prostitute put her godchildren through school.

“Being a godparent is a big responsibility, it’s taking the place of the mother or father, it’s not a game,” she said as her voice broke. “You have to choose the right people who will be responsible and capable, when the parents aren’t around, to send the kids to school and provide them with food and clothes.”

Francis’ unusual friendship with the Torvaianica trans community began during Italy’s strict COVID-19 lockdown, when one, then two, and then more sex workers showed up at the Rev. Andrea Conocchia’s church on the main piazza of town asking for food, because they had lost all sources of income.

Over time, Canocchia got to know the women and as the pandemic and economic hardships continued, he encouraged them to write to Francis to ask for what they needed. One night they sat around a table and composed their letters.

“The pages of the letters of the first four were bathed in tears,” he recalled. “Why? Because they told me ‘Father, I’m ashamed, I can’t tell the pope what I have done, how I have lived.'”

But they did, and the first assistance arrived from the pope’s chief almsgiver, who then accompanied the women for their COVID-19 vaccines a year later. At the time of the pandemic, many of the women weren’t legally allowed to live in Italy and had no access to the vaccine.

Eventually, Francis asked to meet them.

Salas was among those who received the jab at the Vatican and then joined a group from Torvaianica to thank Francis at his general audience on April 27, 2022. She brought the Argentine pope a platter of homemade chicken empanadas, a traditional comfort food from their shared homeland.

Showing the photo of the exchange on her phone, Salas remembered what Francis did next: “He told the gentleman who receives the gifts to leave them with him, saying ‘I’m taking them with me for lunch,'” she said. “At that point, I started to cry.”

For Canocchia, Francis’ response to Salas and the others has changed him profoundly as a priest, teaching him the value of listening and being attentive to the lives and hardships of his flock, especially those most on the margins.

For the women, it is simply an acknowledgement that they matter.

“At least they remember us, that we’re on Earth and we haven’t been abandoned and left to the mercy of the wind,” said Torres Lopez.
…

Survivors of Nazi atrocities joined young Jewish activists outside the Paris Holocaust memorial Saturday to sound the alarm about resurgent antisemitic hate speech, graffiti and abuse linked to the Israel-Hamas war.

The impact of the conflict is drawing increasing concern in France and beyond. Thousands of pro-Palestinian and left-wing activists rallied in Paris and around Britain on Saturday to call for a cease-fire, the latest of several such protests in major cities around the world since the war began.

France is home to the largest Jewish population outside Israel and the U.S., and western Europe’s largest Muslim population. The war has re-opened the doors to anti-Jewish sentiment in a country whose wartime collaboration with the Nazis left deep scars. Some 100,000 people marched through Paris last week to denounce antisemitism.

Esther Senot, 96, said the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7 stirred up her memories of World War II.

“Massacres like that, I have lived through,” she said at the Paris Holocaust Memorial. ”I saw people die in front of me.”

Her sister was among them: ”They brought her to the gas chamber in front of my eyes,” she said.

Most of Senot’s family members died. She survived 17 months in Auschwitz-Birkenau and other death camps and made it back to France at age 17, weighing just 32 kilograms.

Senot was speaking at an event organized by Jewish youth organization Hachomer Hatzai, at which teenage activists drew parallels between what’s happening now and the leadup to World War II. They held a sign saying ”We will not let history repeat itself.”

France’s Interior Ministry said this week that 1,762 antisemitic acts have been reported this year, as well as 131 anti-Muslim acts and 564 anti-Christian acts. Half of the antisemitic acts involve graffiti, posters or protest banners bearing Nazi symbols or violent anti-Jewish messages. They also include physical attacks on people and Jewish sites, and online threats. Most were registered after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, the ministry said.

Serge Klarsfeld, a renowned Nazi hunter and head of the Sons and Daughters of Jewish Deportees from France, noted that anger at the Israeli government’s actions often gets mixed with anti-Jewish sentiment. While he is concerned about the current atmosphere in France, he sought to put it in perspective.

“Certainly there are antisemitic acts (in France), but they are not at an urgent level,” he said. He expressed hope in ”the wisdom of the two communities, who know how lucky they are to live in this exceptional country.”

France has citizens directly affected by the war: The initial Hamas attack killed 40 French people, and French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu is shuttling around the Middle East this week to try to negotiate the release of eight French citizens held hostage by Hamas.

Two French children have also been killed in Israel’s subsequent offensive on Gaza, according to the Foreign Ministry, which is pushing for humanitarian help for Gaza’s civilians.

On Sunday, hundreds of French entertainment stars from different cultural and religious backgrounds plan a silent march in central Paris to call for peace between Israelis and Palestinians. They will march from the Arab World Institute to the Museum of Art and History of Judaism.

Like France and some other countries, Britain has seen protests to demand a cease-fire each weekend since the war began. Organizers from Palestinian organizations and left-wing groups said rallies and marches were held in dozens of towns and cities across the U.K. on Saturday.

Some staged sit-in protests in busy railway stations, while hundreds of people demonstrated outside the north London office of opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer. His refusal to call for a cease-fire and instead to advocate a “humanitarian pause” has angered some members of the left-of-center party.
…

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has sanctioned 37 Russian groups and 108 people including a former prime minister and a former education minister and said he aimed to fight wartime abductions of children from Ukraine and other “Russian terror.”

“We are increasing the pressure of our state onto them and each of them must be held responsible for what they have done,” he said Saturday in his nightly video address after his office issued corresponding decrees with his signature.

Zelenskyy did not associate specific individuals or groups with particular wrongdoings. The decrees showed a range of 10-year penalties against individuals and five-year penalties against non-profit groups including one named in English as the “Russian Children’s Foundation.”

Zelenskyy said in his address that the list included “those involved in the abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children from the occupied territory” and individuals who “in various ways help Russian terror against Ukraine.”

Some of the newly sanctioned people, which included many with Russian citizenship, had previously been punished with separate or similar penalties.

Those included Dmytro Tabachnyk, a former minister of education and science whose Ukrainian citizenship was stripped from him in February, and ex-Prime Minister Mykola Azarov.

Azarov, along with former President Viktor Yanukovich, previously saw some of his assets and property frozen, among other penalties. The two men fled Ukraine for Russia in 2014 after a crackdown on street protests that killed more than 100 demonstrators in Kyiv.

Other individuals penalized on Saturday included Sergei Aksyonov, the Russian-installed head of Crimea, and Leonid Pasechnik, whom Putin appointed head of Luhansk, the eastern Ukrainian region Russia annexed in 2022.

The sanctioned Russian groups included several whose names or websites indicate they work with children.

One sanctioned group was named Kvartal Lui, which matches an organization with a website that says its founder is Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova, herself sanctioned by Kyiv in October 2022.

The International Criminal Court in The Hague this month issued an arrest warrant against Lvova-Belova, along with President Vladimir Putin, accusing them of the war crime of deporting children from Ukraine.

Zelenskyy’s new list also sanctioned the executive director of Kvartal Lui, Sofia Lvova-Belova. Her older sister, Maria Lvova-Belova, has said children were taken to shelter them from violence and denied committing any war crime.

Kyiv says about 20,000 children have been removed to Russia or Russian-held territory without the consent of their family or guardians, which it says amounts to a war crime that meets the U.N. treaty definition of genocide.

Yale University published research Thursday saying more than 2,400 children ages 6-17 had also been taken to 13 facilities across Russian-allied Belarus.

The report, from a group that receives U.S. State Department funding, said that the transports across Russian territory to its western neighbor were “ultimately coordinated” between Putin and Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko.

Zelenskyy’s decrees upheld a decision by the National Security and Defense Council to issue sanctions with an array of penalties including blocking assets, trade, transit, leasing, removal of capital, land purchases and other financial and economic activities.
…

Germany confirmed Saturday that it has launched an investigation into an alleged unauthorized trip to the country by a senior member of Afghanistan’s Islamist Taliban regime.  

The controversy erupted after Abdul Bari Omar, head of the Taliban-led food and medicine authority, appeared at a mosque in Cologne on Thursday, addressing an audience largely made up of Afghan expatriates.  

The German Interior Ministry, on the X social media platform, condemned the appearance of Omar as “completely unacceptable,” saying Taliban members have no place in the country. It urgently sought clarification from the organizers, the Turkish-Islamic Union, or DITIB, on how the appearance came about.  

“Nobody is allowed to offer radical Islamists a platform in Germany. The Taliban are responsible for massive human rights violations,” the ministry wrote. “The responsible authorities are investigating the case intensively.”

‘We are shocked’

The DITIB distanced itself from the event, saying it had only rented the space to a Cologne-based Afghan cultural association for a religious gathering and did not know the Taliban official had been invited. 

“We are shocked by this incident,” the DITIB said in a Friday statement, insisting it “learned from the press” that the speaker was a Taliban representative.  

“Contrary to contractual agreement, this turned into a political event to which a speaker unknown to us was invited,” it said. This constituted a “blatant breach of contract,” and the association has been banned from the premises, it added. 

On Friday, the German foreign ministry said its official data shows that none of the country’s visa offices had issued a visa to Omar, nor was it informed about his visit. The ministry stressed in a statement posted on X that Germany does not recognize the Taliban government.  

“As long as the Taliban in Afghanistan blatantly tramples on human rights, especially the rights of women and girls, there will be no normalization with the Taliban regime,” the ministry added. 

Chief Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed Friday the presence of Omar in Germany by tweeting pictures from the controversial Thursday event. 

“He encouraged the Afghan participants to return to the country and use their capital to contribute to the reconstruction and development of the country, telling them security has returned to the country,” Mujahid wrote.  

The DITIB is reportedly the largest Sunni Muslim organization in Germany and is linked to the Turkish government.  

Separately, the Dutch health and sports minister apologized Saturday for having his picture taken with Omar while both attended the Second World Local Production Forum in the Hague from November 6 to 8.   

Ernst Kuipers wrote on X that he stands for human rights, particularly women’s rights, and does not want to associate himself with what he denounced as the “terrible” Taliban regime.  

“I didn’t know who this person was at the time. This was a mistake, and it should not have happened, and I regret it,” he said. “We are investigating how this person was present at this conference.” 

The hard-line Taliban reclaimed power in August 2021, when U.S.-led Western troops chaotically withdrew after nearly two decades of involvement in the Afghan war.  

No foreign country has recognized the male-only Taliban regime mainly because it bans female education beyond the sixth grade in Afghanistan and bars women from most public and private sector workplaces, including the United Nations.  

De facto Afghan authorities justify their governance, saying it is aligned with Afghan culture and Islamic law. They have rejected international criticism of the Taliban government and calls for removing sweeping restrictions on women. 
…