Greeted by cheering crowds and surrounded by journalists, including from his own station, one of Georgia’s most prominent journalists walked out of prison Thursday hours after being granted a presidential pardon.

President Salome Zurabishvili announced Thursday evening that she had pardoned journalist Nika Gvaramia, founder of pro-opposition broadcaster Mtavari Arkhi.

Gvaramia, who also is a former member of parliament, has been in prison since May 2022.

Zurabishvili announced the pardon in a televised press conference. Later on Twitter, she said:

In May 2022, a court convicted Gvaramia of abuse of power related to his work in 2019 as the director of a separate broadcaster, Rustavi 2. He was sentenced to 3½ years in jail. The sentence made him the only journalist detained in Georgia over his work.

The Georgian Supreme Court rejected Gvaramia’s appeal on Monday.

Gvaramia’s wife, Sofia Liluashvili, told VOA she was “very excited” about the pardon.

“Now, I just don’t know what to do. Only thing I know is I am very, very happy,” she told VOA late Thursday evening while waiting for her husband outside the prison in Rustavi, Georgia.

Liluashvili was at home with friends and her daughter when the president announced the pardon on television.

“To tell the truth, at that moment, I don’t even remember what happened,” Liluashvili said.

After calling her two sons to tell them the news, one of Liluashvili’s friends drove her to the prison, which is outside the capital, Tbilisi.

“I was not in a condition to drive because I was very much excited,” Liluashvili said.

Liluashvili said she was grateful for the local and international support for her husband’s release.

Some critics have said that Gvaramia’s imprisonment was part of an attempt by the pro-Russian faction of Georgia’s government to derail the country’s European Union candidacy.

Earlier this year, the country’s embassy denied that was the case in response to a question from VOA.

“Georgia has a free, independent and pluralistic media environment,” the Georgian Embassy told VOA.

A September 2022 poll from the National Democratic Institute found that 75% of Georgians support EU membership.

The EU has said Georgia needs to improve its press freedom record before its candidacy can be approved. Gvaramia’s release became viewed as a prerequisite for Georgia’s EU membership.

“Nika’s freedom means a lot for [the] Georgian people,” his wife said. “This is a very important step for Georgia’s democracy.”

Two days before the pardon, the U.S Embassy in Tbilisi published a statement saying it was “deeply concerned” about the case.

William Courtney, senior fellow at the RAND Corporation think tank, wrote on Twitter, “President Salome Zurabishvili’s pardon helps protect democracy in Georgia, but the Prime Minister and the government continue to weaken it.”

Press freedom groups have welcomed Gvaramia’s release.

“We are thrilled that Nika Gvaramia has been pardoned. He should never have been jailed, and his continued imprisonment stood at odds with the country’s purported commitment to press freedom,” Gulnoza Said, who covers Georgia at the Committee to Protect Journalists, said in a statement.

Gvaramia’s colleagues celebrated his pardon as well. Journalist Eka Kvesitadze, who worked with Gvaramia at Mtavari Arkhi, told VOA Thursday evening, “It is an extraordinary feeling.”

“Big joy and big relief,” she added. “Tomorrow will be a different day for all of us.”

VOA’s Georgian Service contributed to this report.
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The leaders of Serbia and Kosovo made no breakthrough Thursday in EU-hosted emergency talks aimed at defusing tensions around their border. The European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said they agree on the need for early elections amid fears of a return to open conflict.

Serbia and its former province of Kosovo have been at odds for decades. Their 1998-99 war left more than 10,000 people dead, mostly Kosovo Albanians. Belgrade has refused to recognize Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence.

“I think the two leaders understand the severity of the situation,” Borrell said after hours of talks each with Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic. The two refused to meet face-to-face in Brussels but held separate talks with Borrell.

Borrell conceded that they have “different interpretations of the causes and also the facts, consequences and solutions.”

Tensions flared anew last month after Kosovo police seized local municipality buildings in northern Kosovo, where Serbs represent a majority, to install ethnic Albanian mayors who were elected in a local election that Serbs overwhelmingly boycotted.

Serbia has put its troops on the border on the highest state of alert amid a series of recent clashes between Kosovo Serbs on one side and Kosovo police and NATO-led peacekeepers on the other. In recent weeks, NATO has sent in reinforcements.

The tensions persisted last week with three stun grenades explosions near Kosovo police stations in the north of the country, while Kosovo Serbs staged protests in front of municipality buildings.

Borrell said the EU has repeatedly called on the two sides to help restore calm and return to the negotiating table.

“So far all we have been witnessing is just the opposite,” he said, reading a written statement to reporters.

On the positive side, Borrell said, “we agreed on the need for new elections and discussed in detail the modalities and the steps on how to get there.”

Reporters were not permitted to ask Borrell questions to understand what those plans might involve.

Vucic appeared downbeat. He was unable to say what steps, if any, might be taken in the days and weeks ahead to calm things down. He said that Serbs in Kosovo no longer want to live under “Kurti’s terror,” and that no face-to-face talks are likely anytime soon.

Vucic told reporters that he would not walk away from any talks but said that in his meeting with Borrell and his team, “I also warned that Serbs are in very tough position and do not want to endure the terror they have been forced to endure so far.”

“There is an open [man] hunt for the Serbs every day,” Vucic added. He said that EU officials “have done all in their power but how things will develop depends much less on Borrell than on those who are not interested in de-escalation.”

Meanwhile, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg vowed that the alliance’s peacekeepers “will continue to act impartially.”

“We have increased our presence and will continue to take all necessary measures to ensure a safe and secure environment and freedom of movement for all communities in Kosovo,” Stoltenberg said.

Just four months ago, Borrell indicated things seem promising. He exited talks with Vucic and Kurti to announce that Serbia and Kosovo had given their tacit approval to a EU-sponsored plan to end months of political crises and help improve their ties longer-term.

But the deal unraveled almost immediately as both leaders appeared to renege on commitments that Borrell suggested they had made.
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Some of the Syrian refugees taken in by Spain have accomplished big things, including Adnan Almousa Alfermli. His eyes are set on winning a gold medal at the Paralympics. Miguel Amaya narrates this report from Alfonso Beato in Barcelona. Camera: Alfonso Beato.
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Ali Hussain’s mother can barely speak a sentence without breaking down. Her voice is hoarse from crying. Holding back tears, she says that she recites the Quran all day, praying for her son’s miraculous return.

Hussain is among the hundreds of Pakistanis missing since an overloaded fishing boat carrying up to 750 migrants capsized in the Mediterranean Sea on June 14.

The accident near Greece could be one of the deadliest in recent history. Reports suggest the boat was carrying about 200 to 300 Pakistanis, the most from any single country. Pakistan observed a day of mourning this week.

Hussain, 18, and his cousin Ali Jahanzaib, 21, who is also missing, paid a trafficking agent $3,000 each to fly to Libya from Pakistan. They committed to pay another $5,000 upon reaching Italy by boat.

Sitting in a room full of relatives and friends comforting the family, Hussain’s father, Hafeez-ul-Rehman, told VOA he learned about the accident through social media.

He had come back from midday prayers, Rehman said, when he opened Facebook and saw that the incident was trending as top news. He called the trafficking agent in Libya to find out if his son and nephew had been on that boat.

“He [the agent] was asleep. We asked him what was going on? He said he didn’t know and would check. It was around midnight or so when he confirmed that it was indeed that ship,” Rehman said.

The European Border and Coast Guard Agency, known as Frontex, recorded about 54,000 attempts to illegally enter the continent in the first quarter of this year.

In the same period, more than 440 died taking the perilous journey, according to the International Organization for Migration, making it the deadliest quarter since 2017.

More than half of the illegal attempts, three times more than last year, were made via the central Mediterranean route, according to Frontex.

After Ivory Coast and Guinea, Pakistan accounts for the greatest number of migrants on this route. Many come from the central areas of Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province, and Pakistani-administered Kashmir.

Muhammad Ajmal, an acting deputy director of Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency, or FIA, told VOA that human trafficking thrives in these areas because of a mindset that says, “We will send at least one of our children to Europe, at any cost.”

While growing economic desperation drives many, Ajmal said others leave because of the “demonstration effect.”

“People see that a neighbor’s son went overseas and now the family has a nice house, a car, and that pushes them to send their child,” he said.

Watching friends make it to Europe successfully also inspires many to take the perilous journey.

Hussain and Jahanzaib, the missing cousins, belong to a family of gold jewelers. Rehman, Hussain’s father, told VOA he had once gotten the trafficking agent to cancel the tickets, but the young men were adamant, so he caved in.

In response to this tragedy and another earlier this year in which nearly 30 Pakistanis perished in the Mediterranean, authorities have cracked down on human trafficking.

The FIA has arrested at least 17 suspects and registered 54 cases. The agency has collected 167 DNA samples from families to assist in identifying the remains in Greece.

Ajmal rejected the notion the agency had been turning a blind eye to human smuggling or that its agents were involved in the crime, saying that “without the deterrence it [trafficking] would be much more prevalent.”

He said agents were having trouble getting cooperation from families.

“We have sent our teams to every victim’s house. Some have simply refused to meet with us. Others say, ‘We don’t know anything,’ that ‘Our son managed this on his own,’ and ‘We don’t know anything about the agent,’ and ‘We don’t want to disclose.’ Some say, ‘We don’t want to pursue any legal action.’ So, we are running into a lot of problems,” Ajmal told VOA.

Families are desperate for information. Mariam Bibi, a mother of two brothers on the boat, told VOA she just wants closure.

“We have hope, but we don’t have any information,” Mariam said, expressing her frustration. “Someone says they [her sons] are fine, someone else says they are not.”

Rehman said he was prepared for any eventuality, but that his wife was not ready to accept her son might be dead.

Asked if he would recommend that anyone let children attempt the perilous journey, Rehman said no, but he contended the latest tragedy would not deter many.

“Nobody stops. Even those that are already there [in Libya] know the ship has sunk, still they are going” Rehman noted.

The survivors’ tally stands at 104, and a dozen are Pakistani.
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Russia’s Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a lawsuit by imprisoned opposition leader Alexey Navalny contesting prison regulations that allow prison officials to deprive him of stationery and pens. 

Navalny is serving a nine-year sentence for fraud and contempt of court in a maximum security penal colony in Melekhovo 250 kilometers (150 miles) east of Moscow. This week, another trial against the Kremlin’s archfoe began right there in the penal colony on charges of extremism. If convicted, Navalny will remain behind bars for at least two more decades. 

In the lawsuit considered by the Supreme Court on Thursday, Navalny complained that prison officials in the restricted housing unit, where he is held in isolation, no longer gave him a pen and paper. 

“Some are being given a pen and paper for an hour. In some places, for 15 minutes, and a convict needs a week to finish a letter. In my case, the time for writing materials was removed from my schedule entirely. How come? The prison chief decided so, that’s how,” Navalny wrote in a typically sardonic social media post on the eve of the hearing. 

The complaint is one of many the 47-year-old politician has filed against prison officials, alleging multiple violations of his rights as a convict. All of his lawsuits and petitions have been rejected by Russian courts. 

Navalny appeared at the Supreme Court hearing via video link from the Melekhovo colony. During the hearing, Russian authorities argued that there was nothing wrong with prison regulations and that Navalny should be given a pen and paper whenever he asked for them, if he was not required to do something else at that time. 

Navalny’s arguments that it doesn’t work that way in his prison were brushed off, and the court quashed his lawsuit. 

Navalny, who exposed official corruption and organized major anti-Kremlin protests, was arrested in January 2021 upon returning to Moscow after recuperating in Germany from nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin. 

While imprisoned, the anti-corruption crusader has spent months in a tiny one-person cell, also called a “punishment cell,” for purported disciplinary violations such as an alleged failure to properly button his prison robe, properly introduce himself to a guard or wash his face at a specified time. 

Navalny’s associates and supporters have accused prison authorities of failing to provide him with proper medical assistance and voiced concern about his failing health. 
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The World Bank chief will announce a raft of measures on Thursday to aid countries hit by natural disasters, including a pause in debt repayments to the lender, as world leaders gather in Paris to give impetus to a new global finance agenda.

Some 40 leaders, including about a dozen from Africa, China’s prime minister and Brazil’s president, will be joined in the French capital by international organizations at the “Summit for a New Global Financial Pact.”

It aims to boost crisis financing for low-income countries, reform post-war financial systems and free up funds to tackle climate change by getting top-level consensus on how to progress several initiatives currently struggling in bodies like the G20, COP, IMF-World Bank and United Nations.

Leaders are set to back a push for multilateral development banks like the World Bank to put more capital at risk to boost lending, according to a draft summit statement seen by Reuters.

In a speech to be delivered on Thursday, new World Bank president Ajay Banga will outline a “toolkit”, including offering a pause in debt repayments, giving countries flexibility to redirect funds for emergency response, providing new types of insurance to help development projects and helping governments build advance-emergency systems.

While the new World Bank measures are designed to give developing nations some financial breathing space, there was no discussion of multilateral lenders offering debt writedowns — so-called haircuts.

China — the world’s largest bilateral creditor — has been pushing for lenders like the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund to absorb some of the losses.

Those institutions and many developed nations, notably the United States, are resisting, arguing that acceding to Beijing’s demand would be tantamount to a bailout for China. Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang is due to speak at the summit on Friday.

New vision

Citing the war in Ukraine, climate crisis, widening disparity and declining progress, leaders said the World Bank and other multilateral financial institutions needed a new vision.

The global financial architecture is outdated, dysfunctional and unjust, the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.

“It is clear that the international financial architecture has failed in its mission to provide a global safety net for developing countries,” he said.

French President Emmanuel Macron, hosting the summit, said it was time to act or trust would be lost.

The summit aims to create roadmaps that can be used over the next 18-24 months, ranging from debt relief to climate finance. Many of the topics on the agenda take up suggestions from a group of developing countries, led by Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, dubbed the “Bridgetown Initiative.”

The coronavirus pandemic pushed many poor countries into debt distress as they were expected to continue servicing their obligations in spite of the massive shock to their finances.

Africa’s debt woes are coupled with the dual challenge faced by some of the world’s poorest countries of tackling the impacts of climate change while adapting to the green transition.

Wealthy nations have yet to come good on climate finance that they promised as part of a past pledge to mobilize $100 billion a year, a key stumbling block at global climate talks.

Though binding decisions are not expected, officials involved in the summit’s planning said some strong commitments should be made about financing poor countries.

Nearly eighty years after the Bretton Woods Agreement created the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), leaders aim to squeeze more financing from multilateral lenders for the countries that need it most.

In particular, there should be an announcement that a $100 billion target has been met that will be made available through the International Monetary Fund for vulnerable countries, officials said.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, whose country is the World Bank’s biggest shareholder, said multilateral development institutions should become more effective in the way they use their funds before thinking of injecting more money into them.

Some leaders are expected to lend their weight to long-stalled proposals for a levy on shipping industry emissions ahead of a meeting next month of the International Maritime Organization officials said.
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Six people remained in a critical condition and one person was believed still missing on Thursday, one day after a blast ripped through a street near Paris’ historic Latin Quarter, the city’s public prosecution office said.

“These figures may still change,” prosecutor Maylis De Roeck told Reuters in a text message, adding that around 50 people had been injured in the blast, which set buildings ablaze and caused the front of one to collapse onto the street.

Of two people initially believed missing, one has been found in hospital and is being taken care of, the prosecutor said, adding: “Searches are ongoing to find the second person.”

Authorities have not yet said what caused the explosion, which witnesses said had followed a strong smell of gas at the site.

The explosion led to scenes of chaos and destruction in the historic Rue Saint Jacques, which runs from the Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral to the Sorbonne University, just as people were heading home from work.

It also destroyed the facade of a building housing the Paris American Academy design school popular with foreign students.

Florence Berthout, mayor of the Paris district where the blast occurred, said 12 students who should have been in the academy’s classrooms at the time had fortunately gone to visit an exhibition with their teacher.

“Otherwise, the (death toll) could have been absolutely horrific,” Berthout told BFM TV.

She said three children who had been passing by at the time were among the injured, although their lives were not in danger.
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More than 30 migrants were feared dead after a small boat headed for Spain’s Canary Islands sank Wednesday, two migration-focused organizations said, as they criticized Spain and Morocco for not intervening earlier to rescue the vessel’s passengers.

The groups, Walking Borders and Alarm Phone, said the boat held around 60 people. Spain’s maritime rescue service confirmed the deaths of two of the dinghy’s occupants, a child and an adult man, and said a Moroccan patrol boat had rescued 24 people.

Neither Spanish nor Moroccan authorities would confirm how many people had been on board the vessel or how many might be missing.

Walking Borders spokesperson Helena Maleno said in a tweet that 39 people had drowned, without giving further details, while Alarm Phone, which operates a trans-European network supporting rescue operations, said 35 people were missing.

The tragedy sparked criticism from migrant rights activists who said the boat was in Spain’s search-and-rescue region under international law, meaning Madrid should have led the operation instead of Rabat.

At the time of its sinking, the dinghy was in waters off the coast of Western Sahara. Although Morocco administers a majority of the former Spanish colony, its sovereignty remains under dispute and the United Nations lists it as a non-self-governing territory.

Spain’s state news agency EFE reported that a Spanish rescue service ship, the Guardamar Caliope, was about 46 kilometers, about an hour’s sail, away from the dinghy Tuesday evening.

The Guardamar Caliope did not aid the dinghy because the operation had been taken over by the Moroccan Rescue Coordination Centre in Rabat, which dispatched a patrol boat that arrived on Wednesday morning, about 10 hours after it had been spotted by a Spanish rescue airplane, EFE added.

The EU has said it and member states have been intensifying efforts to establish an “effective, humanitarian and safe” European migration policy.

Morocco’s Interior ministry has not responded to a Reuters request for comment and Morocco has not made any official communication about what happened.

The Canary Islands off the coast of West Africa have become the main destination for migrants trying to reach Spain, with a much smaller share trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to the Spanish mainland.

The Atlantic migration route is one of the deadliest in the world. Attempts to reach the Canary Islands’ shores saw at least 559 people, including 22 children, die in 2022, according to data from the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration.

The migrants using the route are typically from several countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
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Last week’s migrant boat accident in the Mediterranean Sea near Greece has sent shock waves through Pakistan, home to almost 300 passengers of the overcrowded fishing vessel. VOA’s Pakistan bureau chief Sarah Zaman met with some parents waiting to learn the fate of their missing children.
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Iran met in Qatar with European Union mediator Enrique Mora as part of efforts to revive its 2015 nuclear pact with world powers, as Tehran and Washington seek to cool tensions with a mutual understanding to help end the deadlock.  

Having failed to revive the deal in indirect talks that have stalled since September, Iranian and Western officials have met repeatedly in recent weeks to sketch out steps that could curb Iran’s fast advancing nuclear work, free some U.S. and European detainees held in Iran, and unfreeze some Iranian assets abroad.  

“(I) had a serious and constructive meeting with Mora in Doha. We exchanged views and discussed a range of issues including negotiations on sanctions lifting,” Iranian chief nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani said on Twitter, without elaborating. 

Mora tweeted that the Doha talks were intense and had touched on “a range of difficult bilateral, regional and international issues, including the way forward on the JCPOA,” the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as the nuclear deal is officially called.  

EU spokesperson Peter Stano said the bloc was “keeping diplomatic channels open, including through this meeting in Doha, to address all issues of concern with Iran.”  

Bagheri Kani said last week that he had met his British, German and French counterparts in the United Arab Emirates to discuss “a range of issues and mutual concerns.”  

The 2015 agreement limited Iran’s disputed uranium enrichment activity to make it harder for Tehran to develop the means to produce nuclear weapons, in return for a lifting of international sanctions against Tehran. 

But then-U.S. President Donald Trump ditched the pact in 2018, calling it too lenient on Iran, and reimposed sanctions that have crippled the Iranian economy. 

Tehran responded by gradually moving well beyond the pact’s restrictions on enrichment, rekindling U.S., European and Israeli fears that it might be seeking an atomic bomb. 

The Islamic Republic has long denied seeking to weaponize the enrichment process, saying it seeks nuclear energy only for civilian uses.  

The meeting between Bagheri Kani and Mora in Qatar’s capital, Doha, came days after Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the last say on all state matters such as the nuclear dossier, said a new nuclear deal with the West was possible. 
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Turkey’s LGBT+ movement is celebrating pride this week in Istanbul, but authorities are cracking down on any public displays as newly reelected President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accuses the movement of posing a threat to Turkish society. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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A court in Belarus on Wednesday handed lengthy prison terms to 18 participants of mass anti-government protests that shook the country in 2020, the latest step in a brutal years-long effort to stifle all and any dissent.

Multiple charges against the activists, three of whom had left the country and were tried in absentia, included assault on law enforcement officers, conspiracy to overthrow the government, committing a terrorist act and others.

According to the authorities, the protesters formed a resistance movement, attacked law enforcement officers, carried out acts of sabotage and set police stations in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, on fire. Some of them were also accused of attempting to set fire to the house of a pro-government lawmaker, Aleh Hayukevich, chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party of Belarus, by throwing Molotov cocktails at it.

Sentences handed to the demonstrators ranged from two to 25 years in prison.

Mass protests engulfed Belarus in 2020 in the wake of the disputed presidential election that handed authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko his sixth term in office. Both the Belarusian opposition and the West have denounced the vote as rigged.

The authorities responded to the demonstration with a harsh crackdown, arresting more than 35,000 people and brutally beating thousands. Dozens of rights groups and independent news outlets have been shut down.

The multi-pronged clampdown on government critics has continued to this day, with the authorities targeting opposition activists, rights advocates and journalists. Viasna, Belarus’ most prominent rights organization, has counted 1,492 political prisoners in the country.

Vadzim Prakopyeu, a key opposition figure, was sentenced Wednesday to 25 years in prison as an “organizer of a terrorist conspiracy.” Prakopyeu has left Belarus, so his sentence was announced in absentia. He has supported Belarusians who are fighting alongside Kyiv’s forces in Ukraine.

Commenting on the sentence, Prakopyeu told reporters that “Lukashenko’s criminal regime is rubberstamping criminal sentences.”

Also, among those convicted was the entire family of former serviceman Uladzislau Vaytsiachovich. He stood trial alongside his wife, son and daughter-in-law and was sentenced to 21 years in prison, while his relatives were handed sentences ranging from 11 to 19 years.

Another serviceman, Ihar Chamyakin, was sentenced in absentia to 20 years in prison.
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Andrew Tate, a social media personality known for expressing misogynistic views online, appeared Wednesday at a court in Romania, where prosecutors have charged him with rape, human trafficking and forming a criminal gang to exploit women. 

Tate and his brother, Tristan, who is also charged with the offenses, arrived Wednesday at a court in the capital Bucharest, flanked by six bodyguards. 

Prosecutors have also filed charges against two Romanian women in the case. Romania’s anti-organized crime agency alleged that the four defendants formed a criminal group in 2021 “in order to commit the crime of human trafficking” in Romania as well as the United States and Britain. 

The agency alleged that seven female victims were misled and transported to Romania, where they were sexually exploited and subjected to physical violence by the gang. One defendant is accused of raping a woman twice in March 2022, according to the statement. 

Tate, 36, has resided in Romania since 2017. The former professional kickboxer has repeatedly claimed Romanian prosecutors have no evidence and alleged the case is a political conspiracy to silence him. 

Asked by reporters “how much money have you made from trafficking women?” outside court ahead of Wednesday’s hearing, Tate snapped: “Zero.” 

Tate’s spokesperson, Mateea Petrescu, said Tuesday that the brothers were prepared to “demonstrate their innocence and vindicate their reputation.” 

“Tate’s legal team are prepared to cooperate fully with the appropriate authorities, presenting all necessary evidence to exonerate the brothers and expose any misinterpretations or false accusations,” Petrescu said. 

The Tate brothers, who are dual British-U.S. citizens, and the two Romanian suspects were detained in late December in Bucharest. The brothers won an appeal on March 31 to be moved from police custody to house arrest. 

Tate is a successful social media figure with more than 6 million Twitter followers, many of them young men and schoolchildren. He previously was banned from TikTok, YouTube and Facebook for hate speech and his misogynistic comments, including that women should bear responsibility for getting sexually assaulted. 

He returned to Twitter last year after the platform’s new CEO, Elon Musk, reinstated Tate’s account. Hope Not Hate, a group campaigning against far-right extremism in the U.K., has warned that Tate continues to attract a huge following among young men and teenage boys who are drawn to his “misogynist, homophobic and racist content” by the luxurious lifestyle the influencer projects online. 

Romania’s anti-organized crime agency, known as DIICOT, said the seven alleged victims were recruited with false declarations of love and taken to Romania’s Ilfov county, where they were forced to take part in pornography. The women were allegedly controlled by “intimidation, constant surveillance” and claims they were in debt, prosecutors said. 

Prosecutors ordered the confiscation of the Tate brothers’ assets, including 15 luxury cars, luxury watches and about $3 million in cryptocurrency, the agency’s statement said. 

Several women in Britain also are pursuing civil claims to obtain damages from Tate, alleging they were victims of sexual violence. In a recent interview with the BBC, Tate denied spreading a culture of misogyny and accusations that he manipulated women for financial gain. 
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Greece is under growing pressure to launch an investigation into the June 13 sinking of a vessel that was carrying up to 750 migrants. At least 82 people died and hundreds are still missing, including many women and children. Most were from Egypt, Syria and Pakistan. Henry Ridgwell reports.
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Britain and Ukraine are co-hosting a two-day conference to rally support for Ukraine’s rebuilding and recovery from the Russian invasion that began early last year. 

The conference Wednesday and Thursday in London is bringing together leaders from 60 nations as well as officials from the private sector.   

Britain said specific areas of focus included technology, logistics, green energy, agriculture, health and infrastructure.  

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s office announced $3 billion in World Bank loan guarantees as part of a new financial support package for Ukraine that will help support public services such as hospitals and schools. 

“The question for us today is what can we do to support this – to fast-track recovery and help Ukraine unleash its potential. We must bring to bear a partnership of governments, international financial institutions, and business leaders, all of us here today, to make this happen,” Sunak said in remarks released ahead of the conference opening. 

Sunak’s office also said 400 companies from 38 nations have pledged to support recovery and reconstruction efforts in Ukraine. 

“Ukraine’s reconstruction needs are — and will be — immense,” British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said Tuesday. “Through our new measures today, we’re strengthening the U.K.’s sanctions approach, affirming that the U.K. is prepared to use sanctions to ensure Russia pays to repair the country it has so recklessly attacked.”   

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States would continue to support Ukraine, including announcing Wednesday a “new robust U.S. assistance package.” 

Blinken said the conference was a show of the “powerful and enduring support for Ukraine, not only militarily but also economically, and also in everything we’re trying to do to build the strongest possible democracy. So, we’re very pleased to be part of this and very pleased that Ukraine and our friends here are hosting this conference.” 

Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Off the top of his head, Piotr Stasinski doesn’t know how many lawsuits his newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, has faced over the years.

After some thought, the longtime editor at the Polish daily told VOA the number is around 100 since the conservative Law and Justice Party came to power in 2015.

About one-third of those cases are still active, he estimates, adding that he believes they are designed to silence the newspaper and its critical coverage.

But Gazeta Wyborcza is not alone.

“There is an avalanche of lawsuits against independent media,” Stasinski told VOA, as he spoke about the current state of press freedom in Poland. “They know that this is the way to tire us, to exhaust our resources.”

The lawsuits that Gazeta Wyborcza is fighting underscore the broader use of legal action by ruling politicians in Poland to target critical journalists. It’s a tactic that isn’t unique to Poland.

The Polish Embassy in Washington did not reply to VOA’s email requesting comment.

In recent years, the global news industry has been pummeled by an array of forces, ranging from lawsuits and democratic backsliding to corroded public trust and financial pressures.

But at least in the European Union, all hope is not lost, according to a new Freedom House report examining independent media on the continent.

Released on Wednesday, “Reviving News Media in an Embattled Europe” explores the pressures for journalists in Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy and Poland — and how they’re overcoming those challenges in resilient ways.

“We see that newsrooms are finding new ways to sustain journalism and defend themselves against attacks,” the report’s author, Jessica White, told VOA.

Digital media start-ups in France and Italy are taking new approaches to building credibility. In Estonia, a public broadcaster launched a Russian-language service to better counter Moscow’s propaganda. And support networks have been established across Poland and Hungary to support reporters facing lawsuits over their coverage, the report found.

“What’s inspiring to see,” White said, “is that when some of the stresses are greatest, some of the responses are more creative.”

The six countries studied vary by a number of factors, including size, history and level of democracy. But financial insecurity is among the issues confronting newsrooms in all six countries studied in the report.

“Financial survival is at the heart of challenges facing many news media organizations in Europe,” White said. “So, we find that news outlets are having to find new ways to fund independent reporting, but they’re also facing cost cutting and job precarity that affects the diversity of news coverage.”

Attacks on media in Europe parallel attacks on media around the world — all of which are a primary element of a 17-year decline in global freedom, according to Freedom House President Michael Abramowitz.

Watch related video by Veronica Balderas Iglesias:

“Free and independent media is a cornerstone of democracy,” Abramowitz said in a statement about the new report. “Amid war and rising authoritarianism, leaders in Europe and beyond must work to ensure that news outlets play a continued, constructive role for democracy, and that media freedoms are defended and bolstered.”

White agreed, telling VOA, “There are very broad and systemic issues that are facing media organizations around the world.”

Financial difficulties present a particular challenge to Polish and Hungarian media, the report found, because public entities are directing the majority of state advertising to outlets that Freedom House says are perceived as friendly to the government. In turn, more critical outlets are shunned and lose out on state advertising.

Stasinski has witnessed that process firsthand. He said state-owned companies have removed nearly all of their advertising from Gazeta Wyborcza and other independent outlets.

The situation is similar in Hungary, according to Marton Karpati, co-founder of the independent Hungarian news outlet Telex.

“In the friendly press there are state advertisements, elsewhere there are essentially none,” he told VOA.

“This is where fragilities can be exploited,” White said. “These weaknesses are more actively being exploited by illiberal governments to skew landscapes in their favor and to make it more challenging for independent media to hold power to account.”

Her report found that in Hungary and Poland, independent media does exist — but in an increasingly hostile and repressive environment.

The picture is particularly stark in Hungary, where about 80% of the country’s media are considered pro-government.

Hungary’s Washington embassy did not reply to VOA’s email requesting comment.

Both Warsaw and Budapest have consolidated control over public media, turning such outlets into tools for pro-government propaganda as critics are targeted and state-owned companies take over press distribution networks and regional media, the report said.

“They’re part of the propaganda machine of the ruling party,” Stasinski said. “We don’t call them journalists anymore. They’re media workers, and they’re functionaries of the party propaganda.”

But there’s still reason for optimism, White said.

“I think that it’s not all bleak,” she said, pointing to how Hungary’s dwindling independent outlets are building new revenue models to survive.

Telex, for instance, turned to crowdfunding from its audience to help support its work. About 25,000 people contributed to its initial fundraising campaign in just five days when it first launched in 2020.

“At Telex, we try to do our best,” Karpati said. “We ask questions, even if we know we won’t get any answers. We are trying to be fair with all sides of a story.”
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The U.N. says that among 8 million refugees who have fled the war in Ukraine, 90% are women and children. With martial law prohibiting most men from leaving the country, many of Ukraine’s women who go abroad have no choice but to take care of their families alone. As part of VOA World Refugee Day coverage, Warsaw reporter Lesia Bakalets heard from some of the women who have taken refuge in Poland. VOA footage by Daniil Batushchak.
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Albanian police on Tuesday raided a camp home to members of an Iranian opposition movement, with local media reporting that the group is suspected of orchestrating cyberattacks against foreign institutions. 

The Ashraf-3 camp northwest of Tirana has been home for a decade to thousands of members of the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), exiled opponents of the government in Tehran. 

Police said in a statement they had acted on the orders of the Albanian judiciary due to the “violation of agreements and commitments” made by the group “when they settled in Albania solely for humanitarian purposes.” 

Local media reported that the police operation was part of an investigation into cybercrime and that officers seized computers. 

Media reports said that when police arrived at the camp, hundreds of PMOI members tried to repel the officers. The group accused the police of using pepper spray. 

The PMOI said one person died, but police denied this.  

“During the operation, the police caused no casualties and did not use weapons under any circumstances,” the police statement said, adding that it had launched a probe into the PMOI’s allegations. 

The group also said a dozen of its members were injured during clashes with police. 

Under a U.N. and U.S.-backed deal in 2013 that saw them leave Iraq, the PMOI settled in other countries, including their unlikely home in Albania, a poor Balkan state in southeast Europe.  

Their numbers have grown to around 2,800 people at Ashraf 3, the largest PMOI camp in the world. 

The arrival of the group had raised fears of attacks in Albania.  

In 2022, Tirana cut off diplomatic ties with Tehran, accusing it of carrying out massive cyberattacks against Albania. 

Tehran considers the People’s Mujahedin a terrorist group and has banned it since 1981. 
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An unprecedented global canvassing of Catholics has called for the church to take concrete steps to promote women to decision-making roles, for a “radical inclusion” of the LGBTQ+ community and for new accountability measures to check how bishops exercise authority.

The Vatican on Tuesday released the synthesis of a two-year consultation process, publishing a working document that will form the basis of discussion for a big meeting of bishops and laypeople in October. The synod, as it is known, is a key priority of Pope Francis, reflecting his vision of a church that is more about the faithful rank-and-file than its priests.

Already Francis has made his mark on the synod, letting lay people and in particular women have a vote alongside bishops. That reform is a concrete step toward what he calls “synodality,” a new way of being a church that envisions more co-responsibility in governance and the key mission of spreading the Catholic faith.

The document highlights key concerns that emerged during the consultation process, which began at the local parish level and concluded with seven continent-wide assemblies. It flagged in particular the devastating impact that clergy sexual abuse crisis has had on the faithful, costing the hierarchy its credibility and sparking calls for structural changes to remove their near-absolute power.

The synthesis found a “unanimous” and “crucial” call for women to be allowed to access positions of responsibility and governance. Without raising the prospect of women’s ordination to the priesthood, it asked whether new ministries could be created, including the diaconate – a reflection of a years-long call by some women to be ordained deacons in the church.

The document noted that “most” of the continent-wide assemblies and “several” bishops conferences called for the diaconate question to be considered by the synod.

The document also asked what concrete steps the church can take to better welcome LGBTQ+ people and others who have felt marginalized and unrecognized by the church so that they don’t feel judged: the poor, migrants, the elderly and disabled, as well as those who by tribal or caste feel excluded.

Perhaps most significantly, the document used the terminology “LGBTQ+ persons” rather than the Vatican’s traditional “persons with homosexual tendencies,” suggesting a level of acceptance that Francis ushered in a decade ago with his famous “Who am I to judge” comment.

Even the seating arrangements for the synod are designed to be inclusive. Delegates are to be seated at round tables, with around a dozen laity and clergy mixed together in the Vatican’s big auditorium. Previously, synods took place in the Vatican’s theater-like synod hall, where cardinals and bishops would take the front rows and priests, nuns and finally lay people being seated in the back rows, far from the stage.

Unlike past working documents, the synthesis doesn’t stake out firm points, proposals or conclusions, but rather poses a series of questions for further discussion by the October assembly. The synod process continues in 2024 with the second phase, after which Francis is expected to issue a concluding document considering the proposals that have been put to him by the delegates.

The working document re-proposed a call for debate on whether married priests could be considered to relieve the clergy shortage in some parts of the world. Amazonian bishops had proposed allowing married priests to minister to their faithful who sometimes go months at a time without Mass, but Francis shot down the proposal after an Amazonian synod in 2019.

It called for more “meaningful and concrete steps” to offer justice to survivors of sexual abuse. It noted that the faithful have also been victims of other types of abuse: “spiritual, economic, power and conscience abuse” that have “eroded the credibility of the Church and compromised the effectiveness of its mission.”

It suggested that the church must reevaluate the way authority is exercised by the hierarchy, suggesting structural, canonical and institutional reforms to eradicate the “clericalism,” or privilege that is afforded to clergy.

It acknowledged the fear and opposition that the synodal process has sparked among some bishops who see it as undermining their authority and power, but said transparency and accountability were absolutely necessary and that bishops should even be evaluated as a way to rebuild trust.

“The synodal process asks them (bishops) to live a radical trust in the action of the spirit in the life of their communities, without fear that the participation of everyone need be a threat to their ministry of community leadership,” it says.

Even before the synod began, the document and the consultative process that preceded it were already having an effect.

Sister Nadia Coppa, who heads the umbrella group of women’s religious orders, said anyone who exercises governance in religious orders was being called to develop a new way of exercising authority.

“It will be important for us to propose a style of governance that develops structures and participatory procedures in which members can together discern a new vision for the church,” Coppa told a press conference.
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Romanian prosecutors sent divisive internet personality Andrew Tate, his brother Tristan and two other suspects to trial on Tuesday on charges of human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women.

The Tate brothers and two Romanian female suspects are under house arrest pending a criminal investigation for abuses committed against seven women, accusations they have denied.

The four were held in police custody from Dec. 29 until March 31 before a Bucharest court put them under house arrest.

Andrew Tate has also been charged with raping one of the victims, while his brother Tristan has been charged with instigating others to violence.

The trial will not start immediately.

Under Romanian law, the case gets sent to the court’s preliminary chamber, where a judge has 60 days to inspect the case files to ensure legality.

The Tate brothers, former kickboxers who have U.S. and British nationality with millions of online followers, are the highest profile suspects to be sent to trial in Romania for human trafficking.

Prosecutors have said the Tate brothers recruited their victims by seducing them and falsely claiming to want a relationship or marriage.
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World Refugee Day, designated as such by the United Nations, is marked every year on June 20. The day is meant to highlight the plight of refugees around the globe who have been forced to flee their home countries due to conflict or persecution. The theme of World Refugee Day 2023 is “hope away from home,” according to the U.N. Refugee Agency. Here’s a look at some key facts about the current state of refugees in the world today.
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Turkey hosts more refugees than any other country in the world, including more than 3 million Syrians escaping the civil war. Newly reelected Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is standing by his refugee policy of admitting millions of refugees, mainly Syrians, into Turkey and them allowing to stay despite growing public opposition. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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Four temples from ancient Rome, dating back as far as the 3rd century B.C. stand smack in the middle of one of the modern city’s busiest crossroads.

But until Monday, practically the only ones getting a close-up view of the temples were the cats that prowl the so-called “Sacred Area,” on the edge of the site where Julius Caesar was assassinated.

Now, with the help of funding from Bulgari, the luxury jeweler, the group of temples can be visited by the public.

For decades, the curious had to gaze down from the bustling sidewalks rimming Largo Argentina (Argentina Square) to admire the temples below. That’s because, over the centuries, the city had been built up, layer by layer, to levels several meters above the area where Caesar masterminded his political strategies and was later fatally stabbed in 44 B.C.

Behind two of the temples is a foundation and part of a wall that archaeologists believe were part of Pompey’s Curia, a large rectangular-shaped hall that temporarily hosted the Roman Senate when Caesar was murdered.

What leads archaeologists to pinpoint the ruins as Pompey’s Curia? “We know it with certainty because latrines were found on the sides” of Pompey’s Curia, and ancient texts mentioned the latrines, said Claudio Parisi Presicce, an archaeologist and Rome’s top official for cultural heritage.

Ruins among ‘best preserved’

The temples emerged during the demolition of medieval-era buildings in the late 1920s, part of dictator Benito Mussolini’s campaign to remake the urban landscape. A tower at one edge of Largo Argentina once topped a medieval palace.

The temples are designated A, B, C and D, and are believed to have been dedicated to female deities. One of the temples, reached by an imposing staircase and featuring a circular form and with six surviving columns, is believed to have been erected in honor of Fortuna, a goddess of chance associated with fertility.

Taken together, the temples make for “one of the best-preserved remains of the Roman Republic,” Parisi Presicce said after the Mayor of Rome Roberto Gualtieri cut a ceremonial ribbon Monday afternoon. On display in a corridor near the temples is a black-and-white photograph showing Mussolini cutting the ribbon in 1929 after the excavated ruins were shown off.

Also visible are the travertine paving stones that Emperor Domitian had laid down after a fire in 80 A.D. ravaged a large swath of Rome, including the Sacred Area.

Artifacts on display

On display are some of the artifacts found during last century’s excavation. Among them is a colossal stone head of one of the deities honored in the temples, chinless and without its lower lip. Another is a stone fragment of a winged angel of victory.

Over the last decades, a cat colony flourished among the ruins. Felines lounged undisturbed, and cat lovers were allowed to feed them. On Monday, one black-and-white cat sprawled lazily on its back atop the stone stump of what was once a glorious column.

Bulgari helped pay for the construction of the walkways and nighttime illumination, a relief to tourists who step gingerly over the uneven ancient paving stones of the Roman Forum. The Sacred Area’s wooden walkways are wheelchair- and baby-stroller-friendly. For those who can’t handle the stairs down from the sidewalk, an elevator platform is available.

The attraction is open every day except for Mondays and some major holidays, with general admission tickets priced at 5 euros ($5.50).

Curiously, the square owes its name not to the South American country but to the Latin name of Strasbourg, France, which was the home seat of a 15th-century German cardinal who lived nearby and who served as master of ceremonies for pontiffs, including Alexander VI, the Borgia pope.
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In her years running Catholic youth programs in France, Sister Nathalie Becquart often invoked her own experience as a seasoned sailor in urging young people to weather the storms of their lives.

“There’s nothing stronger than seeing the sunrise after a storm, the flat calm of the sea,” she said.

That lesson is especially applicable to Becquart herself as she charts the global church through an unprecedented — and at times, tempestuous — period of reform as one of the highest-ranking women at the Vatican.

Pope Francis named the 54-year-old nun as the first female undersecretary in the Vatican’s Synod of Bishops office in 2021. Since then, she has been crisscrossing the globe as the public face of his hallmark call to listen to rank-and-file Catholics and empower them to have a greater say in the life of the church.

That process, which comes to a head in October with a big assembly, reaches a crucial point Tuesday with the publication of the working document for the meeting. It is shaping up as a referendum on the role of women in the church of the third millennium.

Becquart, who has overseen a canvassing of ordinary Catholics about their needs from the church and hopes for the future, says the call for change is unambiguous and universal, with demands that women have greater decision-making roles taking center stage at the meeting, or synod.

“There is this unanimous call because women want to participate, to share their gifts and charism at the service of the church,” Becquart said in an interview with The Associated Press in her offices just off St. Peter’s Square.

For a 2,000-year-old institution that by its very doctrine bars women from its highest ranks, Francis’ synodal process has sparked unusual optimism among women who have long felt they were second-class citizens in the church. Predictably, the prospects of change have provoked a strong backlash from conservatives, who view the synod as undermining the all-male, clerical-based hierarchy and the ecclesiology behind it.

Becquart and Francis aren’t daunted and see the criticism, fear and alarm as a good sign that something big and important is underway.

“Of course, there is resistance,” Becquart said with a laugh. “If there is no resistance, that means nothing is happening or nothing is changing.”

But she also puts it in perspective: “If you look at all the history of the reform of the church, where you have the strongest resistance or debated points, it’s really usually a very important point.”

Francis, the 86-year-old Argentine Jesuit, has already done more than any modern pope to promote women by changing church law to allow them to read Scripture and serve on the altar as eucharistic ministers, even while reaffirming they cannot be ordained as priests.

He has changed the Vatican’s founding constitution to allow women to head Vatican offices and made several high-profile female appointments, none more symbolically significant than Becquart’s.

As undersecretary in the Synod of Bishops, Becquart was de facto granted the right to vote at the upcoming October synod — a right previously held by men only. After years of complaints by women, who had been allowed to participate in synods only as nonvoting experts, auditors or observers, Francis not only gave Becquart a voting role, but expanded the vote to laypeople in general.

In April, the Vatican announced that 70 non-bishops would be voting alongside the successors of the apostles in October, and that half of them were expected to be women. While these represent less than a quarter of the bishop votes, the reform was nevertheless historic and a reflection of Francis’ belief that church governance doesn’t come from priestly ordination but by specific jobs entrusted to the baptized faithful.

Becquart has long held leadership roles in the French church, where she ran the bishops’ youth evangelization program. A graduate of Paris’ top HEC business school, Becquart said she has drawn strength from the women who preceded her at the Vatican and in her own religious community, the Xaviere Sisters, a Jesuit-inspired, Vatican II-era missionary congregation that she joined at age 26.

From them and her grandmother, who was widowed while pregnant with her fourth child, Becquart said she learned that women “carry on this message that life is stronger than death, and that even in the greatest difficulties, crises and sufferings, there is a possible path, especially when you are not alone.”

It’s a lesson she applies when sailing and leading spiritual retreats at sea.

“There will be good weather and bad weather, quiet seas and then big waves.” she said. But eventually, the storm will end.

“That’s our life and that’s the life of the church,” she added.

Australia’s ambassador to the Holy See, Chiara Porro, has praised Becquart’s leadership style, recalling how she managed a room full of bishops during the Oceania phase of the synod consultation process. Becquart’s presence as a female Vatican envoy traveling to Fiji to brief Pacific bishops on the pope’s agenda signaled a paradigm shift, Porro said.

“She doesn’t have any preconceived objectives or outcomes. For her, no issues are off-limits, I think, and that’s very important because people feel that they can bring up what they want to discuss,” she said.

Veteran Vatican-watchers, however, caution that even with women taking on high-profile appointments and winning the right to vote at the October synod, the men still run the show.

“All the reforms that have been made to date on governing at the Vatican, in my opinion, are just appearances,” said Lucetta Scaraffia, a church historian who participated in a 2016 synod and wrote a scathing account of her marginalized role in From the Last Row. Her experiences — of being forced to go through a metal detector and check in each day while the bishops waltzed in unimpeded — were emblematic.

“I realized how the Catholic Church really was another world and what it means for women to be nonexistent. To actually not exist,” she said.

Jean-Marie Guenois, chief religious affairs correspondent for Le Figaro, who has known Becquart for years, said her role at the Vatican and in the synod process would be revolutionary “if it marked a paradigm shift in the Catholic Church where women would achieve parity of power in government.”

“We’re a long way from that,” he said, while nevertheless calling Becquart’s position “simply prophetic.”
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