At least 50,000 people have fled from their homes in Nagorno-Karabagh into Armenia this week. The exodus comes after the long conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan appears to have ended swiftly in Baku’s favor. VOA’s Heather Murdock reports from Armenia, near the border with Nagorno-Karabakh.
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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday expressed “unreserved apologies” on behalf of all of Canada after a 98-year-old veteran who served in a Nazi SS unit was honored Friday in the country’s parliament.

Yaroslav Hunka was invited to the legislature by Anthony Rota, the speaker of Canada’s House of Commons, who resigned Tuesday over the incident.

Trudeau said he had reached out to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was on a visit to Canada at the time, in the fallout of the controversy. Both Zelenskyy, who is Jewish, and Trudeau were present for the incident.

Zelenskyy had delivered remarks before Friday’s joint legislative session when Rota described Hunka as “a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero.” Rota pointed him out in the audience, giving way to two rounds of applause from the lawmakers and politicians who were in attendance to show support for Ukraine and Zelenskyy.

Hunka, who is now a Canadian citizen, once fought in the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division, an SS unit that declared loyalty to Hitler and battled the Soviet Army for Ukrainian independence.

Rota said that he “subsequently became aware of more information” regarding Hunka’s past and apologized to his fellow members of Parliament.

Rota stepped down after unflinching pressure from activist groups.

Rota didn’t give advance notice to Trudeau or Zelenskyy that Hunka would be invited.

Karina Gould, Canada’s house leader, told The New York Times that had she known of Hunka’s Nazi ties she would “have never in a million years stood and applauded.”
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Slovakia is due to hold parliamentary elections Saturday amid fears in Kyiv and Western capitals that the result could jeopardize unity on support for Ukraine following Russia’s full-scale invasion last year.

Robert Fico

The populist Smer, or Direction, party, led by former prime minister Robert Fico, is leading the polls with around 18% of the vote. He has campaigned on a platform of ending military support for Ukraine and blocking the country’s path to NATO membership, while opposing sanctions on Russia.

Speaking at a campaign rally September 6 in the town of Michalovce, close to the Ukrainian border, Fico called for an end to Western weapons supplies for Kyiv.

“Peace is the only solution. I refuse to get criticized and labeled as a warmonger just for talking about peace, whereas those who support war and killing are being called peace activists. We have it all messed up in our heads. We will not send a single bullet to Ukraine from the state stocks,” Fico told cheering supporters.

Military aid

Slovakia has until now been a strong supporter of Ukraine, donating its fleet of Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets and an S-300 air defense system.

Fico pledged to reverse such policies. “Why for God’s sake don’t we go negotiate peace? Why do we only talk about how much ammunition we are going to send to Ukraine, what tanks are we going to send, how many billions are we going to spend on more armaments?” he said.

“Why don’t we force the warring parties, use the weight of the EU and the U.S. to make them sit down and find some sort of compromise that would guarantee security for Ukraine,” Fico told The Associated Press in a recent interview, adding that he would oppose European Union sanctions on Moscow and block any application by Ukraine to join NATO.

Fico’s Smer party looks set to fall well short of a parliamentary majority and would need to form a coalition government, giving a potentially crucial role to Slovakia’s numerous smaller political parties.

Political chaos

Fico served as Slovakia’s prime minister between 2006 to 2010 and again from 2012 to 2018.

He was forced to resign after the murder of journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancée, Martina Kusnirova, in 2018 prompted mass protests. Kuciak had been investigating alleged tax fraud among top Slovakian business leaders with close links to politicians.

Since then, Slovakia has undergone a period of political turmoil, with four prime ministers in five years. Fico appears to have regained his support, partly on the back of his calls to end support for Ukraine, according to Dominika Hajdu, an analyst with the Bartislava-based policy group GLOBSEC.

Pro-Russian sentiments

“These kind of anti-Ukraine or even pro-Russian narratives resonate among Slovaks. One factor is definitely that Slovakia has historically had quite a large portion of the society with pro-Russian sentiments,” Hajdu told VOA.

A recent survey by GLOBSEC showed that just over half of Slovaks believe the West or Kyiv are responsible for the war following Russia’s February 2022 invasion. Similarly, half of respondents saw the United States as posing a security threat for Slovakia, up from 39% in 2022.

Politicians have sought to exploit those sentiments, Hajdu said. “Political representatives have been utilizing the war in Ukraine to spread nationalist populism. So, they put the issue of the war in Ukraine into the contrast with being pro-Slovak,” he said.

“Just to give you an example: ‘By providing military support to Ukraine, we are taking security guarantees from Slovakia. By providing financial support to Ukraine, we’re taking money from Slovaks who need it more.’ So, they were able to create an assumption that by being pro-Ukrainian, you’re anti-Slovak,” Hajdu told VOA.

Hungarian ally

Until now, Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, has been the sole NATO and EU member to openly question Western support for Ukraine. Fico sees Orban as a future ally, says Grigorij Meseznikov of the Slovak Institute for Public Affairs.

“I think [Fico] is not brave enough to become a single dissident. But now that he’s got Orban, he’s got a solid point to adhere to. So, he will join Orban. He has become very authentically pro-Russian and spreads Russian narratives,” Meseznikov told The Associated Press.

Domino effect

In several other Western countries, populist parties skeptical of the West’s military aid to Ukraine enjoy significant public support, Hajdu said.

“I’m afraid it might cause a bit of a domino effect, especially in countries that are awaiting elections. We’re already seeing in Poland that the issue of support for Ukraine is being brought up,” Hajdu said. Poland is due to hold elections October 15.

The Progressive Slovakia party, led by the current vice president of the European Parliament, Michal Simecka, is polling just behind Fico’s Smer party. Simecka is strongly pro-Western and supports military aid for Ukraine.

Analysts say that coalition negotiations will be difficult for any party and that the elections are unlikely to end Slovakia’s political turmoil.
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Robert Fico — whose party appears tied for the lead in Slovakia’s parliamentary election on Saturday — says he would end military support for Ukraine and block the country’s path to NATO membership, while opposing sanctions on Russia. As Henry Ridgwell reports, Ukraine’s Western allies fear a Fico victory could prompt other countries to question their support for Kyiv following Russia’s 2022 invasion.
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France’s ambassador to Niger left the country early on Wednesday morning, around one month after the military government ordered his expulsion and days after President Emmanuel Macron said the diplomat would be pulled out and French troops withdrawn.

Relations between Niger and France, its former colonial ruler which maintained a military presence in the country to help fight Islamist insurgents, have broken down since army officers seized power in Niamey in July.

The junta had ordered French ambassador Sylvain Itte to leave the country within 48 hours at the end of August in response to what they described as actions by France that were “contrary to the interests of Niger.”

France at first ignored the order, sticking to its stance that the military government was illegitimate and calling for the reinstatement of elected President Mohamed Bazoum, who was toppled in the July coup.

But Macron announced on Sunday that the ambassador would return to Paris and French troops would leave.

Two security sources in Niger said Itte had flown out of the country. The news was later confirmed by the president’s office in Paris.

There have been almost daily protests against France in Niamey since the military took power. Crowds of junta supporters have spent days camping outside a French military base to demand the troops’ departure.

Macron had said Itte and his staff were effectively being held hostage at the embassy.

Anti-French sentiment spreads

Niger is just one of France’s former colonies in West Africa where there has been growing anti-French sentiment both among the population and the authorities, especially in countries where military rulers have seized power.

Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad and Niger are now all run by army officers following a spate of coups over the past three years, and anti-French rhetoric has been a recurring feature of their public pronouncements.

Critics of France say that for decades after its former colonies gained independence, it sought to maintain strong economic and political influence through a system of overt and covert diplomacy known as ‘Francafrique.’

The French government says the days of Francafrique are over and operations like the one in Niger were being conducted with the full consent, knowledge and cooperation of local governments, such as Bazoum’s now defunct administration.

While France’s critics accuse Paris of continuing to exert excessive and disruptive influence in the region, some analysts say military juntas are using France as a scapegoat for hard-to-solve problems.

The juntas in Mali and Burkina Faso have already kicked out French forces deployed to help fight a decade-long Islamist insurgency that has killed thousands and displaced millions across the Sahel region.

Some analysts have expressed concern that the withdrawal of French troops from Niger could further hamper Western efforts to stem the violence, which has risen since the coups, and bolster Russian influence in the region.
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Russia Wednesday accused the United States and Britain of helping Ukraine carry out an attack last week against the headquarters Russian Black Sea fleet in Russia-occupied Crimea.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing that the attack was “planned in advance using Western intelligence means, NATO satellite assets, and reconnaissance planes.”

Zakharova also said U.S. and British intelligence helped coordinate the missile strike.

While the U.S. and other Western partners have provided military equipment and training to Ukraine, U.S. officials have previously denied playing a direct role in Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion.

When Russia accused the United States of being involved in a May drone attack on the Kremlin, White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby called the claim “ludicrous.”

A television channel run by Russia’s Defense Ministry broadcast undated video Wednesday showing Adm. Viktor Sokolov, the leader of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, saying the fleet was performing successfully.

It was the second consecutive day in which video of Sokolov appeared on Russian television, following a Ukrainian claim that he was killed in the Crimea missile strike.

Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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The United States and Germany added to calls for international observers to be allowed into the Nagorno-Karabakh region, as Azerbaijan said Wednesday that 192 of its soldiers were killed in an operation to retake the area from ethnic Armenian separatists.

The U.S. State Department said Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev in a phone call to assure people in Nagorno-Karabakh their rights will be protected and to allow for humanitarian access to the region.

“The secretary urged President Aliyev to commit to broad amnesty and allow an international observer mission into Nagorno-Karabakh, and noted the President’s public commitments to help build a future for all those in Nagorno-Karabakh based on peace, mutual understanding, and mutual respect,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement.

Aliyev’s office said he told Blinken “that respective activities are underway to ensure the rights of Armenian residents living in the Karabakh region” and that Azerbaijan’s forces targeted only military facilities in the 24-hour operation last week.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said Wednesday that allowing monitors into the region “would be proof of confidence that Azerbaijan is serious about its commitments on the security and the wellbeing of people in Nagorno-Karabakh.”

Baerbock also announced Germany would more than double the humanitarian aid it is providing through the International Red Cross, boosting the funding to more than $5 million.

Azerbaijan’s offensive has pushed thousands of ethnic Armenians to flee Nagorno-Karabakh, which is entirely within Azerbaijan but had been under ethnic Armenian control since 1994, until parts of it were reclaimed by Azerbaijan during a war in 2020. 

More than 43,000 people had arrived in Armenia by early Wednesday.

Separatist officials said the casualties on their side included more than 200 dead and 400 injured.

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

 
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Six young people from Portugal will argue that governments across Europe aren’t doing enough to protect people from the harms of climate change at the European Court of Human Rights on Wednesday, in the latest and largest instance of activists taking governments to court to force climate action.

The lawyers representing the young adults and children claim that the 32 European governments they’re suing have failed to adequately address global warming and therefore violated some of their fundamental rights.

“We’ve put forward evidence to show that it’s within the power of states to do vastly more to adjust their emissions, and they are choosing not do it,” lawyer Gerry Liston told The Associated Press at the start of the day-long hearing.

Although there have been successful climate cases at national and regional levels — young environmentalists recently won a similar case in Montana — the activists’ legal team said that because national jurisdictions did not go far enough to protect their rights, the group felt compelled to take the matter to the Strasbourg-based court.

Arguing that their rights to life, to privacy and family life, and to be free from discrimination are being violated, they hope a favorable ruling will force the 27 EU member countries, as well as the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, Russia and Turkey, to accelerate their climate efforts such as building renewable infrastructure and reducing their greenhouse gas emissions.

The court’s rulings are legally binding on member countries, and failure to comply makes authorities liable for hefty fines decided by the court. 

“This judgement would act like a binding treaty imposed by the court on the respondents, requiring them to rapidly accelerate their climate mitigation efforts,” Liston said. “In legal terms, it would be a gamechanger.” 

Liston said a ruling in favor of the group would also help future climate cases taken at domestic level by providing guidance to national courts. 

But the plaintiffs — who are between 11 and 24 years of age and are not seeking financial compensation — will need to convince judges that they have been sufficiently affected to be considered as victims. The group will also need to prove to the courts that governments have a legal duty to make sure global warming is held to 1.5 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times in line with the goals of the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

“We have put forward evidence before the court that all of the respondents’ state climate policies are aligned to 3 degrees (Celsius) of warming within the lifetime of the applicants, or in the case of some states, worse than that,” Liston said. “”No state has put forward evidence to counter that position.”

Science is on the activists’ side.

The world is way off track on limiting warming to 1.5 C, scientists say, with global average temperatures projected to rise by 2 to 4 degrees C by 2100 on current trajectories of warming and emissions reductions plans. 

As the world warms, climate scientists predict more frequent and more extreme weather events, from heavier flooding and rainfall to prolonged droughts and heat waves and increasingly intense storms.

The activists said climate change affects their daily lives and their studies, and damages both their physical and psychological well-being. 

They started judicial action in the wake of a series of deadly wildfires in central Portugal in 2017, where four of them live.

“It’s 43 degrees one day, and the next it’s hail, and that’s dangerous because we can’t predict what’s going to happen,” said 15-year-old André Oliveira, adding that the heat wave that hit Portugal in May hindered his schoolwork.

“I had exams and I tried to study for them, but it’s hard to concentrate,” André said. And it’s not just the physical effects, he said. “The climate crisis affects our mental health because it makes us worried about our future. How could we not be scared?” 

André’s sister, Sofia, said her brother suffers from asthma and couldn’t go outside without feeling suffocated when temperatures hit an unusually warm 30 C in winter this year.

“Governments around the world have the power to stop this, and Europe’s governments are choosing not to stop this,” said 23-year-old Catarina dos Santos Mota, another member of the group. “Since we started our action, we have felt the impact of the climate crisis getting worse and worse. In 2023, July was the hottest month on record. It is terrifying to think this is just the beginning.”

It’s the first climate case to be filed with the court. Two other climate cases — one by an association of senior women against Switzerland, the other by a French lawmaker against France — have been brought before the court since. 

Members of the association of elderly people traveled to Strasbourg in support of the young Portuguese. They stood in front of the courthouse before the hearing, alongside a few dozens of other supporters.

“I wish them a future, because they are very young. When they saw everything burning around them, all the catastrophes, they realized they would not have a future,” said Anne Mahrer, the group’s co-president. “We probably won’t be there to see it, but if we win, everybody wins.”

A decision is not expected for several months. It’s still unclear whether the court will deliver its ruling on all three climate cases at the same time. 
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The United States government ramped up its diplomatic efforts and humanitarian assistance for thousands of ethnic Armenians fleeing the Nagorno-Karabakh region. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias reports on how the crisis is evolving, after Azerbaijan regained control last week of the breakaway territory.
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Forty-two thousand women serve in the Ukrainian military, and the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense recently officially approved a female uniform. Lesia Bakalets has the story from Kyiv. VOA footage by Yevhenii Shynkar.
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A Russian court on Tuesday rejected Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny’s appeal against a decision to imprison him on extremism charges for almost two decades.

On August 4, judges of the Moscow City Court convicted Navalny on extremism charges and sentenced him to 19 years in prison, ruling that his previously handed prison sentences will be served concurrently in Russia’s harshest prison regime. Navalny, his allies, rights groups and Western governments say all charges are politically motivated.

The first appeals court in Moscow upheld the sentence on Tuesday at a hearing held behind closed doors. Only the reading of the verdict was public. Navalny, who has accused the Kremlin of seeking to keep him behind bars for life and to keep Russians from voicing dissent, participated in the proceedings via video link.

The charges against Navalny are widely seen as retribution for his efforts to expose what he describes as the pervasive lawlessness, corruption and repression by President Vladimir Putin and his political system.

Navalny was Russia’s loudest opposition voice over the last decade and galvanized huge anti-government rallies before he was jailed.

The 47-year-old threatened the Kremlin by establishing a network of political offices across the country and a corruption watchdog that brought credible graft allegations against political elites.

He was jailed in 2021 after arriving in Moscow from Germany, where he had been recovering from a poisoning attack he blamed on the Kremlin.

The ruling last month came a year and a half into Russia’s invasion in Ukraine, which brought with it an unprecedented crackdown on dissenting voices. Navalny has repeatedly spoken out against the military campaign.

Navalny, who has complained of a series of health complications — and undertook a weekslong hunger strike — is being held in the IK-6 penal colony, 250 kilometers (155 miles) east of Moscow.

Allies say his health has taken a further hit in recent months, during which he has been in and out of solitary confinement. Ahead of the appeal, prison authorities placed Navalny in a detention cell for the 20th time, his team said.

In August the court also ruled to send Navalny to a “special regime” colony, a maximum-security facility reserved for dangerous criminals that will cut him off from the outside world.

The “special regime” prison is a system in which inmates stay in cells either alone, in pairs or in fours. The cells have additional metal bars on windows and doors, nonstop lighting, and video surveillance. Inmates can request one or two hours of walking outside in specially fenced cubes where there is no direct sunlight.

Special regime inmates are not allowed to communicate with friends or relatives and can have no visits in the first 10 years of their sentences.

Some information came from Agence France-Presse.
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Spanish prosecutors have charged pop star Shakira with failing to pay $7.1 million in tax on her 2018 income, authorities said Tuesday, in Spain’s latest fiscal allegations against the Colombian singer. 

Shakira is alleged to have used an offshore company based in a tax haven to avoid paying the tax, Barcelona prosecutors said in a statement. 

She has been notified of the charges in Miami, where she lives, according to the statement. 

Shakira is already due to be tried in Barcelona on November 20 in a separate case that hinges on where she lived between 2012-14. In that case, prosecutors allege she failed to pay $15.4 million in tax. 

Prosecutors in Barcelona have alleged the Grammy winner spent more than half of the 2012-14 period in Spain and therefore should have paid taxes in the country, even though her official residence was in the Bahamas. 

Spanish tax officials opened the latest case against Shakira last July. After reviewing the evidence gathered over the last two months, prosecutors have decided to bring charges. No date for a trial was set. 

The public relations firm that previously has handled Shakira’s affairs, Llorente y Cuenca, made no immediate comment. 

Last July, it said the artist had “always acted in concordance with the law and on the advice of her financial advisers.” 

Shakira, whose full name is Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll, has been linked to Spain since she started dating the now-retired soccer player Gerard Pique. The couple, who have two children, lived together in Barcelona until last year, when they ended their 11-year relationship. 

Spain tax authorities have over the past decade or so cracked down on soccer stars like Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo for not paying their full due in taxes. Those players were found guilty of tax evasion but avoided prison time thanks to a provision that allows a judge to waive sentences under two years in length for first-time offenders. 
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At least 20 people were killed and nearly 300 others injured by an explosion at a crowded gas station in Nagorno-Karabakh as thousands of people rushed to flee into Armenia, separatist authorities in the region said Tuesday.

More than 13,500 people — about 12% of the region’s population — have fled across the border since Azerbaijan defeated separatists who have governed the breakaway region for about 30 years in a swift military operation, Armenia’s government said Tuesday morning.

Residents of Nagorno-Karabakh scrambled to flee as soon as Azerbaijan lifted a 10-month blockade on the region’s only road to Armenia, causing severe shortages of food, medicine and fuel. While Azerbaijan has pledged to respect the rights of Armenians, many residents feared reprisals.

The explosion took place as people lined up to fill their cars at a gas station outside Stepanakert, the region’s capital, late Monday. The separatist government’s health department said that 13 bodies have been found and seven people have died of injuries from the blast, the cause of which remains unclear.

It added that 290 people have been hospitalized and scores of them remain in grave condition.

Armenia’s health ministry said a helicopter brought some blast victims to Armenia on Tuesday morning, and more flights were expected.

Azerbaijani presidential aide Hikmet Hajiyev said on X, formerly Twitter, that hospitals in Azerbaijan were ready to treat victims, but not if any had been taken to them. Azerbaijan has sent in burn-treatment medicine and other humanitarian aid, he said.

The Azerbaijani military routed Armenian forces in a 24-hour blitz last week, forcing the separatist authorities to agree to lay down weapons and start talks on Nagorno-Karabakh’s “reintegration” into Azerbaijan.

Gasoline has been in short supply in Stepanakert for months, and the explosion further adds to anxiety about whether residents they will be able drive the 35 kilometers (22 miles) to the border.

Cars bearing large loads on their roofs crowded the streets of Stepanakert, and residents stood or lay along sidewalks next to heaps of luggage.

Moscow said that Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh were assisting the evacuation. Some 700 people remained in the peacekeepers’ camp there by Monday night.

Nagorno-Karabakh was an autonomous region within Azerbaijan under the Soviet Union, but separatist sentiment grew in the USSR’s dying years and then flared into war.

Nagorno-Karabakh came under the control of ethnic Armenian forces, backed by the Armenian military, in separatist fighting that ended in 1994. During a war in 2020, Azerbaijan took parts of Nagorno-Karabakh along with surrounding territory that it lost of control of during the earlier conflict.

Under the armistice that ended the 2020 fighting, Russia deployed a peacekeeping force of about 2,000 to the region.
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It wasn’t the deadliest attack in Europe linked to the Islamic State group, but it was among the most disturbing: One evening in 2016, an assailant killed two police officers in their family home, in front of their 3-year-old son.

On Monday, a trial opened in a French counterterrorism court over the attack in the Paris suburb of Magnanville.

The attacker, Larossi Abballa, was shot to death by police. According to court documents, he told police negotiators that he was responding to an IS leader’s call to “kill miscreants at home with their families.”

A childhood friend of Abballa’s, Mohamed Aberouz, is on trial for complicity to terrorism-related murder, complicity to kidnapping and terrorist conspiracy. Aberouz, who says he is innocent, faces up to life in prison if convicted.

The killings came amid a wave of attacks in France linked to the Islamic State group and had a lasting effect on police officers around France. Some moved, changed services or resigned to protect their loved ones after the Magnanville killings.

“All of us are watching this trial,” Denis Jacob, general secretary of the police union Alternative Police Nationale, said on BFM television as the trial began.

According to court documents, Abballa broke into the home of police officers Jessica Schneider and Jean-Baptiste Salvaing before they returned from work. When Schneider came home, Abballa slit her throat in the living room, with the child present.

Salvaing texted her from the office to say, “I’m leaving,” documents say.

There was no response. He was stabbed upon arriving home.

Neighbors called police and the attacker said he was holding the couple’s 3-year-old hostage, according to the documents. He told a negotiator from a special police unit that he acted because the French government was preventing the faithful from joining the caliphate and stressed that he had not targeted civilians but representatives of the French state.

Police stormed the home, killed Abballa and rescued the child. The boy, now 10, has been raised by family members since, and is not expected to appear at the trial.

After more than five years of investigation and multiple arrests, only Aberouz is facing trial. Charges were initially brought against two others but later dropped.

Aberouz, now 30, was arrested a year after the events, when his DNA was found on the victims’ computer.

Taking the stand at the start of Monday’s trial, he told the court, “I want to express all my compassion for the families of victims,” according to public broadcaster France-Info. He condemned Abballa’s actions and insisted on his own innocence. “I hope to be listened to” during the trial, he said.

Aberouz initially disputed connections to IS, before acknowledging that the group corresponded to his convictions while denouncing its extremist methods, according to the court documents.

He maintains that he never went to the police couple’s home or helped in preparing the attack. He said the DNA found in the victims’ home could have been the result of his shaking hands with Abballa or riding in his car in the days before the attack.

Aberouz’s lawyer, Vincent Brengarth, said he would plead for acquittal. “There is no message in which he talks about an attack,” he told The Associated Press.

Aberouz was already sentenced to prison in another terrorism case, for his role in a failed gas canister attack near Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.

Police hope that the Magnanville attack trial sheds light on the preparations for the attack and the methods used by those who plot to attack police officers.

A verdict is expected Oct. 10.
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Burkina Faso’s military junta on Monday suspended the French news magazine Jeune Afrique for publishing “untruthful” articles that reported tension and discontent within the country’s armed forces, it said in a statement. 

Jeune Afrique’s suspension marks the latest escalation in a crackdown on French media since the West African country fell under military rule last year. 

The statement accused the publication of seeking to discredit armed forces and of manipulating information to “spread chaos” in the country, following two articles published over the past four days. 

Relations between Burkina Faso and its former colonizer, France, have soured since frustrations over worsening insecurity linked to a jihadist insurgency spurred two military takeovers last year. 

These tensions have led to the expulsion of diplomatic officials, including the French ambassador to the country, and fueled a backlash against foreign media. 

The junta has already suspended French-funded broadcasters Radio France Internationale and France24 for allegedly giving voice to Islamist militants staging an insurgency across the Sahel region south of the Sahara. 

French television channel La Chaine Info, of private broadcaster TF1, was suspended for three months in June for airing a report on the insurgency that “lacked objectivity.” 

In April, two French journalists working for newspapers Le Monde and Liberation were expelled from the country. 
…

Military analysts say Vietnam is desperate for a new generation of powerful fighter jets and other arms, and recent news reports indicate the country could be seeking them from both the United States and Russia, although no details can be confirmed.  

Reuters reported Saturday that the Biden administration is in talks with Vietnam over an agreement for the largest transfer of arms between the two countries, including F-16 fighter jets.  The report says the deal is still in its early stages and may not come together. But it was a key topic of recent Vietnamese-U.S. Talks in Hanoi, New York and Washington over the past month, according to Reuters.  

The White House declined comment on the matter. 

A few weeks ago, before President Joe Biden visited Vietnam and upgraded the two country’s relations to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, the New York Times reported that Vietnam’s military was pursuing a secret Russian arms deal that would violate U.S. sanctions on Moscow. 

Since the release of the report, U.S. and Vietnamese officials have declined to discuss the issue. 

The deal was outlined in a March 2023 document from Vietnam’s Ministry of Finance and has been verified by former and current Vietnamese officials, according to the Times report. The Times report contends that Hanoi plans to fund defense purchases by shifting $8 billion over 20 years to Vietsovpetro – a joint oil venture in Siberia. 

Although experts say the Times report is well-founded, it is unclear whether it will go through and how it could affect Hanoi’s standing with Western partners, particularly the United States.       

“I do believe the NYT story has credence … If true, the report highlights that Vietnam still views Russia as an important defense cooperation partner,” wrote senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute Ian Storey over email.     

“We do not yet know if the Vietnamese government has decided to follow through on the deal,” he wrote.     

Nguyen The Phuong, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of New South Wales who specializes in Vietnam’s defense and maritime security, told VOA he first heard about a potential arms deal with Russia in June. Although he said he had not seen the leaked Finance Ministry document, he has seen a letter of intention from Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh to his Russian counterpart to pursue an arms purchase.     

“There’s a letter of intention from the Vietnamese prime minister to push that plan,” Phuong said of the arms deal. “It’s become more and more clear about the intention of the Vietnamese to move forward with that plan.”   

Historic ties     

Even as defense purchases from Russia become riskier, the secret arms deal would make a certain kind of sense for Hanoi, experts said.     

“The military is the most pro-Russian and anti-Western among all the national institutions in Vietnam,” said Alexander Vuving, professor at the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu.     

“The leaders in the Ministry of Defense are still embracing Russia,” he said.     

The tight-knit bond is just part of the story, though. Vietnam’s supply of fighter jets is quickly aging beyond its service life and Russia can provide an affordable update without training pilots, ground, and mechanic crews in a new language and weapons system, said Zachary Abuza, professor at the National War College in Washington.     

“Vietnam is desperate for a new generation of fighter jets, and they have a limited budget. They’re comfortable with the Russians, and the Russians are willing to consider alternative funding mechanisms, so it’s kind of a win-win,” Abuza told VOA.     

The deal could fulfill another crucial requirement for Vietnam through the joint oil venture: energy. Following the slump in manufacturing during the COVID-19 pandemic, Vietnam is scrambling for enough energy to power its growing economy.      

“Vietnam can lock into a long-term supply contract for energy it desperately needs given its economic growth,” Abuza said. “At the same time, they can make sure some of that money is then directed into an arms procurement platform.”     

Risky deal     

Despite the benefits, the proposed Russian arms deal carries risks and the document leak reveals potential dissent among Vietnamese officials. 

“This leaked document would cause a lot of trouble for the Vietnamese,” Vuving said, adding that Hanoi is looking for support to build up a semiconductor supply chain and Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh recently advocated for Vietnam to be granted market economy status during a Washington visit this month, which would benefit Vietnamese exporters in antidumping disputes.     

“It shows that they are not reliable to the United States,” Vuving stated. “That’s why they wanted to keep [the arms deal] secret.”     

A defense partnership with Moscow is also increasingly chancy as Russia becomes more isolated and moves closer to China. The prospect of Russian lack of support in disputes between China and Vietnam in the South China Sea may have contributed to the leak.    

“There are less reasons for Vietnamese to trust Russia in the South China Sea than before,” Vuving said. “That’s why I think some Vietnamese officials were so unhappy with this agreement and they leaked the document.”     

Even with the uncertainty, the majority consensus still supports the Russian arms deal.      

“At the moment, Vietnam sees that the benefits outweigh the risks in dealing with Russia in the short term,” Phuong said.  
…

A new report by the U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine documents a growing body of evidence of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity committed by Russia in its war of aggression against Ukraine.

The report, which was submitted to the U.N. human rights council Monday, presents a picture of widespread violations and abuse against the civilian population and of wanton, large-scale destruction of essential infrastructure.

“The commission is concerned by the continuous evidence of war crimes committed by the Russian armed forces in Ukraine,” said Erik Mose, chair of the commission.

“Well into the second year of the armed conflict, people in Ukraine have been continuing to cope with the loss and injury of loved ones, large-scale destruction, suffering and trauma as well as economic hardship that have resulted from it,” he said. “Thousands have been killed and injured, and millions remain internally displaced or out of the country.”

Russia boycotted the proceedings and was not in the room to respond to these charges. In the past it has denied targeting civilians.

Latest figures from the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights put the number of civilian deaths at 9,614 and injuries at 17,535 since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. The agency, however, notes the number of casualties is likely to be much higher.

Statistics from UNHCR, the U.N. refugee agency, show 5.1 million people are displaced within Ukraine and another 6,197,200 have fled to other countries as refugees.

Since it was established in March 2022, the three-member commission has visited Ukraine more than 10 times, gathering information from government authorities and “listening to harrowing testimonies” from victims and witnesses of abuse.

“The commission regrets that all communications addressed to the Russian Federation remain unanswered,” said Mose.

The investigators report that “attacks with explosive weapons in populated areas have led to extensive destruction and damage and have been the leading cause of deaths and injuries among the civilian population.”

They have documented explosive weapons attacks against residential buildings, a railway station, commercial warehouses, medical and other key facilities that have disrupted essential services and supplies.

“In most cases, there seemed to not have been a military presence at the affected sites or in their vicinity,” said Mose.

In Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, regions which had been under prolonged Russian occupation, the commission collected further evidence indicating that the use of torture by Russian armed forces in areas under their control has been widespread and systematic, noting that the principal targets of torture were persons accused of being informants of the Ukrainian armed forces.

Mose told the council that torture mostly took place in various detention centers controlled by Russian authorities and that “the torture was inflicted with such brutality that it caused the death of some of the victims.”

He said the armed conflict has had devastating consequences for children and that the commission is continuing to investigate individual situations of alleged transfers of unaccompanied minors by Russian authorities to the Russian Federation.

“It regrets that there is a lack of clarity and transparency on the full extent, circumstances, and categories of children transferred,” said Mose.

Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin, addressing the proceedings by video link, lambasted “the massive atrocities committed to a shocking degree by Russia in the course of its war of aggression against Ukraine.”

He spoke with passion and anger about the harm caused to the more than 19,000 Ukrainian children who have been forcibly transferred and deported from their country by Russia’s top leadership.

“Ukrainian children are stripped of their Ukrainian citizenship and put for adoption into Russian families,” he said. “It is a war crime and crimes against humanity that also could amount to crime of genocide in line with the 1948 Genocide Convention.”

Mose said the commission also was “concerned about allegations of genocide in Ukraine.”

For instance, he said that “some of the rhetoric transmitted in Russian state and other media may constitute incitement to genocide.”

He said the commission is continuing its investigations on such issues.

“We continue our efforts to collect evidence which may be of use for judicial accountability purposes,” he added.
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Senior Biden administration officials arrived in Armenia on Monday, a day after ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh began fleeing following Azerbaijan’s defeat of the breakaway region’s fighters in a conflict dating from the Soviet era.

The visit by U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) chief Samantha Power and U.S. State Department Acting Assistant Secretary for Europe and Eurasian Affairs Yuri Kim is the first by senior U.S. officials to Armenia since the Karabakh Armenians were forced into a ceasefire last week.

Power will meet with senior Armenian government officials on the trip, first reported by Reuters, and will affirm the U.S. partnership with the country and “express deep concern for the ethnic Armenian population in Nagorno-Karabakh and to discuss measures to address the humanitarian crisis there,” a U.S. official said.

Power will be the first USAID Administrator to go to Armenia, the official added.

“The United States is deeply concerned about reports on the humanitarian conditions in Nagorno-Karabakh and calls for unimpeded access for international humanitarian organizations and commercial traffic,” USAID said in the announcement of the trip.

The Armenians of Karabakh, a territory internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but previously beyond its control, sued for peace last week after a 24-hour military operation by the much larger Azerbaijani military.

The Armenians are not accepting Azerbaijan’s promise to guarantee their rights as the region is integrated. The Nagorno-Karabakh leadership told Reuters the region’s 120,000 Armenians did not want to live as part of Azerbaijan for fear of persecution and ethnic cleansing.

The Armenian government said that as of 5 a.m. on Monday more than 2,900 people had crossed into the country from Nagorno-Karabakh.

Armenia has prepared space for tens of thousands of Armenians from the region, including hotels near the border, though Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan says he does not want them to leave their homes unless it is absolutely necessary.

Thousands of Karabakh Armenians have been left without food.

The Armenian authorities in the region said late on Saturday that about 150 tons of humanitarian cargo from Russia and another 65 tons of flour shipped by the International Committee of the Red Cross had arrived in the region.

Karabakh has been run by a breakaway administration since a war in the early 1990s amid the breakup of the Soviet Union.

In 2020, after decades of skirmishes, Azerbaijan, backed by Turkey, won a 44-day Second Karabakh War, recapturing territory in and around Karabakh. That war ended with a Russian-brokered peace deal that Armenians accuse Moscow of failing to guarantee.
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Some members of London’s police force are refusing to carry firearms after a colleague was charged with murder in the fatal shooting of an unarmed Black man.

Such a charge against a police officer is extremely rare in England.

The Telegraph newspaper reports that more than 300 officers, about 10% of the armed police, have refused to carry their weapons following their colleague’s charge.

The officers’ move has prompted Scotland Yard to ask the Ministry of Defense for help with counter-terrorism policing. The MoD would provide London with soldiers who would do specific tasks, but not routine police work.

Only about one in ten police officers in London carries a weapon, after undergoing intensive training.

Chris Kaba, 23, was the unarmed Black man who was killed in an encounter with police last year.  The Associated Press reports Kaba was shot by single bullet as he sat in his car.

The officer accused of killing Kaba has not been publicly named. His trial is expected to begin next year.
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European businesses in China are increasingly questioning their positions in the face of tough new security laws and a politicization of trade, an EU commissioner warned in Beijing on Monday.

“European companies are concerned with China’s direction of travel,” Valdis Dombrovskis said in a speech at the capital’s Tsinghua University.

“Many are questioning their position in this country.”

He pointed to a new foreign relations law and a recent update to China’s anti-espionage laws as being of “great concern to our business community.”

“Their ambiguity allows too much room for interpretation,” he warned.

“This means European companies struggle to understand their compliance obligations: a factor that significantly decreases business confidence and deters new investments in China,” Dombrovskis said.

The EU trade commissioner is on a multi-day visit to the world’s second-biggest economy, where he is set to meet senior economic officials and press the bloc’s case that it is not seeking an economic decoupling from China.

His trip follows a report by the Chamber of Commerce of the European Union last week that showed business confidence was at one of its lowest levels in decades.

“For decades, European companies thrived in China,” the Chamber’s president Jens Eskelund said.

But, after three “turbulent” years, he said, “many have re-evaluated their basic assumptions about the Chinese market”.

And it comes in the face of mounting trade tensions between the EU and China, following Brussels’ decision to launch a probe into Beijing’s electric car subsidies.

The investigation could see the EU try to protect European carmakers by imposing punitive tariffs on vehicles it believes are unfairly sold at a lower price.

The day after that announcement, the Chinese commerce ministry hit back at the EU’s “naked protectionism” and said the measures “will have a negative impact on China-EU economic and trade relations”.

Speaking in Beijing on Monday, Dombrovskis insisted China remained an attractive investment opportunity for European businesses.

“The EU and China both benefited immensely from being open to the world,” he said. “Trading and cooperating across borders helped to shape our economic and geopolitical strength.”

But, he said, growing challenges for business risked turning “what many saw as a ‘win-win’ relationship in past decades could become a ‘lose-lose’ dynamic in the coming years”.

Ukraine war

China’s refusal to condemn Russia’s war in Ukraine also poses a “reputational risk”, he said.

Beijing’s position “is affecting the country’s image, not only with European consumers, but also businesses”, he said.

China has sought to position itself as a neutral party in the Ukraine conflict, while offering Moscow a vital diplomatic and financial lifeline as its international isolation deepens.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin is due to visit China next month.

“China always advocates for each country being free to choose its own development path,” Dombrovskis said.

“So, it’s very difficult for us to understand China’s stance on Russia’s war against Ukraine, as it breaches China’s own fundamental principles.”
…

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan is to meet his ally Azeri President Ilham Aliyev on Monday, as thousands of ethnic Armenians began an exodus from Nagorno-Karabakh after Azerbaijan defeated the breakaway region’s fighters last week.

Erdogan will pay a one-day visit to Azerbaijan’s autonomous Nakhchivan exclave – a strip of Azeri territory nestled between Armenia, Iran and Turkey – to discuss with Aliyev the situation in the Karabakh region, the Turkish president’s office said.

The Armenians of Karabakh, a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but previously beyond its control, were forced into a ceasefire last week after a 24-hour military operation by the much larger Azerbaijani military.

On Sunday, the Nagorno-Karabakh leadership told Reuters the region’s 120,000 Armenians did not want to live as part of Azerbaijan for fear of persecution and ethnic cleansing and started fleeing the area.

Russia’s RIA news agency cited early on Monday an Armenian government statement saying that more than 1,500 people had crossed into Armenia from Nagorno-Karabkah as of midnight.

Those with fuel had started to drive down the Lachin corridor toward the border with Armenia, according to a Reuters reporter in the Karabakh capital known as Stepanakert by Armenia and Khankendi by Azerbaijan.

Reuters pictures showed dozens of cars driving out of the capital toward the corridor’s mountainous curves.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought two wars over the enclave in 30 years — with Azerbaijan gaining back swathes of territory in and around Nagorno-Karabakh in a six-week conflict in 2020.

Erdogan, who backed the Azeris with weaponry in the 2020 conflict, said last week he supported the aims of Azerbaijan’s latest military operation but played no part in it.

Armenia says more than 200 people were killed and 400 wounded in last week’s Azeri operation, a hostility condemned by the United States and other Western allies of Armenia.

On Sunday, Azerbaijan’s defense ministry said it had confiscated more military equipment from Armenian separatists, including rockets, artillery shells, mines and ammunition.

The Karabakh Armenians are not accepting Azerbaijan’s promise to guarantee their rights as the region is integrated.

Armenia called for an immediate deployment of a U.N. mission to monitor human rights and security in the region.

“99.9% prefer to leave our historic lands,” David Babayan, an adviser to Samvel Shahramanyan, president of the self-styled Republic of Artsakh, told Reuters.
…

Among the hundreds of trains crisscrossing Ukraine’s elaborate railway network every day, the Kyiv-Kramatorsk train stands apart, shrouded in solemn silence as passengers anticipate their destination.

Every day, around seven in the morning, passengers of this route leave the relative safety of the capital and head east to front-line areas where battles between Ukrainian forces and Russian troops rage and Russian strikes are frequent with imprecise missiles that slam into residential areas.

The passengers are a mix of men and women that offer up a slice of Ukrainian society these days. They include soldiers returning to the front after a brief leave, women making the trip to reunite for a few days with husbands and boyfriends serving on the battlefields, and residents returning to check on homes in the Donetsk region.

They are all lost in thought and rarely converse with each other.

Nineteen-year-old Marta Banakh anxiously awaits the train’s next brief stop at one of its nine intermediate stations on the way to Kramatorsk. She disembarks at the station for a quick cigarette break, shifting her weight back and forth from one foot to the other. Her family doesn’t know she has made this journey from western Ukraine, crossing the entire country to meet her boyfriend, who has been serving in the infantry since the onset of Russia’s full-fledged invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He rarely gets a break, and Banakh has decided to surprise him with a visit.

“I worry that every day could be his last, and we may never see each other again,” she said wearing her hair down, crowned with a pearl-studded headband.

It’s the only high-speed daily train that drives to Kramatorsk. The city is about 30 kilometers (less than 20 miles) from the front line, which makes it susceptible to Russian strikes. And just a few kilometers away from the city, battles near the Russian-held city of Bakhmut rage for the second year.

The war has become an integral part of the lives of millions of Ukrainians, and the country’s vast railway system has remained operational despite the war. Night trains that rattle across the country still welcome customers with hot tea and clean sheets in the sleeping compartments. The trains also carry cargo, aid and gear.

The popularity of the Kyiv-Kramatorsk route highlights the reality of war.

Around 126,000 passengers used this route during the summer months this year, according to national railway operator Ukrzaliznytsia. It holds the fourth position for passenger volume among all intercity high-speed trains and maintains one of the highest occupancy rates — 94% — among all Ukrainian trains.

The connection was suspended for six months early in the war. The halt in April last year followed a Russian missile strike on the Kramatorsk railway station while passengers were waiting for evacuation. The strike killed 53 people and wounded 135 others in one of the deadliest Russian attacks.

Alla Makieieva, 49, used to regularly travel on this route even before the war. Returning from a business trip to the capital and back to Dobropillia, a town not far from Kramatorsk, she reflects on the changes between then and now.

“People have changed, now they seem more somber,” she says. “We’ve already learned to live with these missiles. We’ve become friends,” she joked. “In Kyiv, the atmosphere is completely different; people smile more often.”

Kyiv is regularly attacked by Russian missiles and drones. But unlike Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region, the capital has powerful air defense protection, which gives residents an illusion of safety.

As the morning light gradually gives way to the midday sun, it fills the spacious train carriages in warm radiance. The train shelves are mostly filled with military backpacks and small bags. Occasionally, a waiter breaks the silence in the aisle, offering coffee, tea, and snacks. Along the way, one can order dishes like bolognese pasta or a cappuccino.

The high-speed train ride from Kyiv to Kramatorsk costs approximately $14. In nearly seven hours, passengers cover a distance of around 700 kilometers (400 miles).

Twenty-six-year-old Oleksandr Kyrylenko sits in the train’s lobby with a coffee in hand, gazing thoughtfully out of the window as the landscapes change rapidly.

It’s his first time heading to the front line, and he admits he didn’t expect to travel to the epicenter of the grinding war with such comfort.

He had been working as a warehouse manager in Poland when Russia invaded Ukraine. “I helped as much as I could,” he said. “Then I decided I needed to go myself.”

“There is no fear. I simply want it to end sooner,” he says of the war, dressed in military attire.

His parents were not thrilled about this idea, but this summer the young man returned to Ukraine and immediately went to the military enlistment office.

“It even feels lighter on my conscience,” he said, adding that this decision came naturally to him. “Human resources are running out. Something needs to be done about it.”

The train arrives at its destination on time, and the platform quickly fills with people.

Some, wearing military-colored backpacks slung over their shoulders, stride forward swiftly, while others linger on the platform in long-awaited embraces.

Twenty-year-old Sofiia Sidorchuk embraces her boyfriend, who has been serving since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. The 20-year-old soldier refrains from disclosing his name for security reasons.

He holds Sidorchuk tightly, as if trying to make up for all the lost time during their longest separation in seven years of the relationship. “We missed each other,”  

Sidorchuk explains her decision to come from the northwestern Rivne region to Kramatorsk.

“It’s love,” added her partner, wearing military fatigues.

His commander granted him a few days alone with his beloved to recharge. In five days, he will embark on a new assault mission.
…

French President Emmanuel Macron said Sunday, France is imminently to withdraw its ambassador from Niger, followed by the French military contingent in the next months, in the wake of the coup in the west African country that ousted the pro-Paris president.

Macron’s announcement appeared to end two months of French defiance over the coup, which had seen Paris keep its ambassador in place in Niamey despite him being ordered by the coup leaders to go.

“France has decided to withdraw its ambassador. In the next hours our ambassador and several diplomats will return to France,” Macron told French television in an interview, without giving details over how this would be organized.  

Niger’s military rulers have banned “French aircraft” from flying over the country’s airspace, according to the Agency for the Safety of Air Navigation in Africa and Madagascar (ASECNA) website. It was not clear if this would affect the ambassador being flown out.

Macron added that military cooperation was “over,” and French troops would withdraw in “the months and weeks to come” with a full pullout “by the end of the year.”

“In the weeks and months to come, we will consult with the putschists, because we want this to be done peacefully,” he added.

France keeps about 1,500 soldiers in Niger as part of an anti-jihadis deployment in the Sahel region. Macron said the post-coup authorities “no longer wanted to fight against terrorism.”  

Niger’s military leaders told French ambassador Sylvain Itte he had to leave the country after they overthrew President Mohamed Bazoum on July 26.  

But a 48-hour ultimatum for him to leave, issued in August, passed with him still in place as the French government refused to comply, or to recognize the military regime as legitimate.

Earlier this month, Macron said the ambassador and his staff were “literally being held hostage” in the mission eating military rations with no food deliveries taking place.  

Macron in the interview reaffirmed France’s position that Bazoum was being held “hostage” and remained the “sole legitimate authority” in the country.

“He was targeted by this coup d’état because he was carrying out courageous reforms and because there was a largely ethnic settling of scores and a lot of political cowardice,” he argued.

The coup against Bazoum was the third such putsch in the region in as many years, following similar actions in Mali and Burkina Faso in 2021 and 2022 that also forced the pullouts of French troops.

But the Niger coup is particularly bruising for Macron after he sought to make a special ally of Niamey, and a hub for France’s presence in the region following the Mali coup. The U.S. also has over 1,000 troops in the country.

Macron regularly speaks by phone to Bazoum who remains under house arrest in the presidential residence.

The French president has repeatedly spoken of making a historic change to France’s post-colonial imprint in Africa, but analysts say Paris is losing influence across the continent especially in the face of a growing Chinese, Turkish and Russian presence.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) threatened military action to restore Bazoum but so far, its threats, which were strongly supported by France, have not transferred into action.

“We are not here to be hostages of the putschists,” said Macron. “The putschists are the allies of disorder,” he added.

Macron said that jihadi attacks were causing “dozens of deaths every day in Mali” after its coup and that now such assaults had resumed in Niger.  

“I am very worried about this region,” he said.

“France, sometimes alone, has taken all its responsibilities and I am proud of our military. But we are not responsible for the political life of these countries, and we draw all the consequences.”
…

An imprisoned Russian opposition figure has been transferred to a maximum security prison in Siberia and placed in a tiny “punishment cell,” his lawyer said Sunday.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr., 42, earlier this year was convicted of treason for publicly denouncing Russia’s war in Ukraine and sentenced to 25 years in prison as part of the Kremlin’s relentless crackdown on critics. On Thursday, he arrived at IK-6 — a maximum security penal colony in the Siberian city of Omsk, his lawyer Vadim Prokhorov said in a Facebook post Sunday.

Prokhorov said the transfer from a detention center in Moscow, where Kara-Murza was being held pending trial and appeals, took less than three weeks. Russian prison transfers, usually done by train, are notorious for taking a long time, sometimes weeks, during which there’s no access to prisoners, and information about their whereabouts is limited.

Kara-Murza, a journalist and an opposition activist, was jailed in April 2022. The charges against him stemmed from a speech he gave weeks prior to the arrest to the Arizona House of Representatives in which he denounced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

An associate of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who was killed near the Kremlin in 2015, Kara-Murza survived poisonings in 2015 and 2017 that he blamed on the Kremlin. Russian officials have denied responsibility.

Kara-Murza rejected the charges against him and called them punishment for standing up to President Vladimir Putin. He likened the proceedings to the show trials under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

Prokhorov said Sunday that upon arrival at the penal colony in Omsk, Kara-Murza was immediately placed in a “punishment cell” — a tiny concrete cell where convicts are held in isolation for violating prison regulations.

Prison authorities have regularly sent imprisoned dissidents to such cells in recent months over alleged minor infractions, a practice that is widely considered designed to put additional pressure on Kremlin critics behind bars.

Prokhorov called the news about Kara-Murza’s extreme confinement “worrying” given his deteriorating health, undermined by the poisonings and solitary confinement he had undergone in pre-trial detention.
…