RiyadMedia

Azerbaijani troops and ethnic Armenians exchanged gunfire on Sunday in Azerbaijan’s contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh, killing at least five people, according to reports from Azerbaijan and Armenia. 

Nagorno-Karabakh was the focal point of two wars that have pitted Azerbaijan against Armenia in the more than 30 years since both ex-Soviet states have achieved attendance. 

Azerbaijan’s defense ministry said two servicemen were killed in an exchange of fire after Azerbaijani troops stopped a convoy it suspected of carrying weapons from the region’s main town to outlying areas. It said the convoy had used an unauthorized road. 

Armenia’s foreign ministry said three officials from the Karabakh interior ministry were killed. It said the convoy had been carrying documents and a service pistol and dismissed as “absurd” Azerbaijani allegations that weapons were being carried. 

Nagorno-Karabakh has long been recognized internationally as part of Azerbaijan, though its population is made up predominantly of ethnic Armenians. 

Armenian forces took control of Karabakh in a war that gripped the region as Soviet rule was collapsing in the early 1990s. Azerbaijan recaptured large swathes of territory in a six-week conflict in 2020 that ended with a truce and the dispatch of Russian peacekeepers, who remain in the region. 

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan have met several times as part of efforts to resolve the conflict, but periodic violence has hurt peace efforts. 

For the past three months, Azeri environmentalists have been blockading the Lachin corridor linking Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, saying they oppose mining operations in the region. 

Armenia says the protesters are political activists acting at the behest of Azerbaijan’s authorities. 

The World Court ordered Azerbaijan last month on Wednesday to ensure free movement through the Lachin corridor. 
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Prime Minister Kaja Kallas’s center-right Reform Party won Estonia’s general election by a wide margin on Sunday, according to near-complete results, beating out a far-right rival that had campaigned against further arms deliveries to Ukraine.   

Reform won 31.6 percent of the vote, with right-wing runners-up EKRE taking 16 percent. In order to stay in power, Reform will again have to form a coalition with one or more of the parties in the Baltic state’s 101-seat parliament.    

The Centre Party secured 14.7 percent of Sunday’s ballot, Estonia 200 got 13.5 percent, the Social Democrats received 9.4 percent and the Isamaa (Fatherland) party 8.3 percent.    

“This is much better than we expected,” Kallas said of the result. “We have ruled out a coalition with EKRE and I stand by my words.” 

EKRE leader Martin Helme suggested on election night that Reform “stole” the election.  

“We didn’t do anything wrong. We did everything right and with honesty, unlike those who stole our well-deserved victory,” he said.   

Reform is a center-right liberal party that appeals to business owners and young professionals.   

It has promised to raise military spending to at least three percent of GDP and ease taxes on business, and wants to pass a law approving same-sex civil partnerships.   

EKRE, meanwhile, had campaigned against additional military aid to Kyiv, called for a halt in Ukrainian refugee arrivals and for lower immigration rates to protect local workers.   

The electoral commission must still verify the results, but if confirmed, Reform will win 37 seats — three more than they did four years ago.   

Escalating tensions  

Estonia, a country of 1.3 million people bordering Russia, is a member of the EU and NATO, and has led international calls over the past year for more military aid to help Ukraine fight off Russia’s invasion.   

Its military assistance to Ukraine amounts to more than one percent of GDP — the biggest contribution of any country relative to the size of its economy — and the ongoing war there was on many voters’ minds.   

“It’s obvious that what is happening in Ukraine is very important for Estonia as well,” 35-year-old engineer Juhan Ressar told AFP at a polling station in the capital Tallinn.   

“Maybe people… have forgotten the importance of independence.”   

Speaking of aid to Ukraine, Kallas said on Sunday: “I think with such a strong mandate this will not change.”   

“Other parties — except EKRE and maybe Centre — have chosen the same line. So I think we can find common ground here,” she added.     

According to EKRE’s Helme, Estonia should not be “further escalating tensions” with Moscow.    

Estonia has also been grappling with a cost-of-living crisis, enduring one of the EU’s highest inflation rates — 18.6 percent in January over 12 months earlier.   

For 62-year-old pensioner Pjotr Mahhonin, only EKRE “represents the Estonian people”. He accused the prime minister of being more interested in “another country”, referring to Ukraine.   

Like many Estonians, he said he feared war. “We have a big neighbor, Russia, and it’s very dangerous.   

“If war starts, we are the country on the front line.” 

Abstention uncertainty  

Rein Toomla, a political expert from the Johan Skytte Institute, said Reform could safely exclude EKRE from any coalition building, as its “position has now become so weak that it can be easily ignored”.   

According to political analysts, a coalition between Reform, Estonia 200 and the Social Democrats is possible, as is one between Reform, Centre and Isamaa.   

The Centre Party, which is traditionally popular with Estonia’s large Russian-speaking minority, has supported government policy on Ukraine and on Russia. The center-left party had also promised more investment in infrastructure and affordable housing.    

This put off some Russian-speaking voters, raising fears of high rates of abstention among the minority, who account for around a quarter of the population.   

Overall voter turnout was 63.5 percent, according to the electoral commission. 
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Industrial action in France over the government’s planned pensions overhaul will cause heavy disruption to public transport again on Tuesday, the transport minister and several public transport authorities said Sunday.

For the sixth time since the start of the year, unions are calling for a nationwide day of strikes and demonstrations, aiming to repeat the large turnout seen on the first major protest Jan. 19 when more than a million people marched against the pension reform.

“There will be very strong impacts,” Transport Minister Clement Beaune said in an interview with France 3 TV, adding that he expected the strike to be “one of the most difficult ones” for travelers since the start of the protests.

“For many it will be a real hassle,” he said.

Some unions, such as the hardline CGT, called for a rolling strike at refineries and at the national railway operator SNCF.

“We are moving up a gear,” the head of CGT, Philippe Martinez, told French weekly JDD. “The ball is now in the president’s court. It is up to him to withdraw this reform,” he said, referring to President Emmanuel Macron.

Macron is pushing for the reform, which would raise the minimum retirement age from 62 to 64, calling it vital to avoid the collapse of the state pension system.

The strikes have already curbed power generation at some of EDF’s nuclear plants.

SNCF said in a statement that it expected one high-speed train in five to run Tuesday. Almost all its regular Intercites  trains will be canceled, it predicted.

RATP, the public transport operator for the Ile-de-France region around Paris, said metro lines and suburban trains will be heavily disrupted, with some metro lines only running at peak hours.

France’s DGAC aviation authority said it had asked airlines to reduce flights by 20% at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport and by 30% at Orly airport on March 7-8.
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Pope Francis called on authorities Sunday to stop human traffickers operating in the Mediterranean, as he expressed his sorrow over last week’s migrant boat disaster off Italy’s Calabrian coast, in which dozens of people were killed.

“I renew my appeal to prevent such tragedies from happening again. May traffickers of human beings be stopped,” the pope said in his weekly address to crowds in St. Peter’s Square.

Local authorities said 70 bodies had so far been recovered following the incident. The migrants had departed from Turkey and were from countries including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Somalia and Syria.

“May journeys of hope never again turn into journeys of death, may the clear waters of the Mediterranean no longer be bloodied by such dramatic accidents,” the pope said.

Around 80 people survived after the boat broke up and sank in rough seas near Steccato di Cutro, a resort on the Calabria region’s eastern coast. Authorities estimated it had carried up to 200 migrants.

Three alleged traffickers were arrested this week and prosecutors began looking into the way emergency services responded to the disaster, after accusations that authorities were slow to react.

“I pray for the many victims of the shipwreck, for their families and for those who survived,” the pope said.

Right-wing Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who this week called on fellow European Union leaders to do more to halt illegal immigration, praised the pope’s remarks.

The government was “continuing to deploy all necessary forces to combat human traffickers and stop deaths at sea,” she said in a post on Facebook.
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Much of Russia’s yearlong invasion in Ukraine has devolved into infantry fighting in the eastern regions of the country, in part because Moscow’s forces are short on artillery munitions, the British Ministry of Defense said Sunday.

In its latest assessment, London said, “Recent evidence suggests an increase in close combat in Ukraine. This is probably a result of the Russian command continuing to insist on offensive action largely consisting of dismounted infantry.”

The ministry said that late last month, Russia mobilized reservists who have described “being ordered to assault a Ukrainian concrete strong point armed with only ‘firearms and shovels.’ The ‘shovels’ are likely entrenching tools being employed for hand-to-hand combat.”

It said, “The lethality of the standard-issue MPL-50 entrenching tool is particularly mythologised in Russia,” but that “little has changed since its design in 1869.”

“Its continued use as a weapon highlights the brutal and low-tech fighting which has come to characterize much of the war,” defense officials said. “One of the reservists described being ‘neither physically nor psychologically’ prepared for the action.”

Meanwhile, Ukrainian troops holding out in Bakhmut faced increased pressure Saturday from Russian forces as civilians received assistance in fleeing the besieged eastern city.

It is now too dangerous to leave Bakhmut by vehicle, a Ukrainian army representative told The Associated Press, so civilians now must flee on foot. Ukrainian soldiers set up a pontoon bridge Saturday to help civilians reach the nearby village of Khromove, the AP said.

One woman was killed and two men were badly wounded while trying to escape over the makeshift bridge, according to the Ukrainian troops helping them.

Ukrainian troops have destroyed two key bridges just outside the city, including one to Chasiv Yar, cutting off their last remaining resupply route, according to U.K. military intelligence officials and other Western analysts.

Destroying the bridge may be a sign that Kyiv is preparing to leave. The Institute for the Study of War said that by taking out the Chasiv Yar bridge, Ukrainian troops may “conduct a limited and controlled withdrawal from particularly difficult sections of eastern Bakhmut,” while making it more difficult for Russians to pursue them.

If Russian fighters do capture Bakhmut, it would be a rare battlefield gain after months of setbacks and might allow them to cut Ukraine’s supply lines and press toward other Ukrainian strongholds in the Donetsk region.

Ukrainian National Guard Deputy Commander Volodymyr Nazarenko told Ukrainian broadcaster Kyiv24 the city remains under Ukrainian control despite intense and ongoing attacks by Russian forces.

“Every hour in Bakhmut is like hell. The enemy had successes in the north, northwest of Bakhmut a week ago. Ukrainian soldiers are fighting back. Over the past few days, the front line has been stabilized thanks to our hard work and efforts,” Nazarenko said.

Bakhmut’s deputy mayor, Oleksandr Marchenko, confirmed to the BBC that “thanks to the Ukrainian armed forces, they still haven’t taken control of the city.”

Marchenko said about 4,000 civilians remain in what was a city of 70,000 that is all but destroyed. They live in shelters without gas, electricity or water, he said.

Responding to reports of the withdrawal of some Ukrainian troops, Serhiy Cherevatyi, the spokesperson of the eastern grouping of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, told CNN on Saturday that Ukrainian soldiers are rotating positions in Bakhmut in controlled, planned cycles.

Cherevatyi said there have been hostilities around Bakhmut, in the villages of Vasiukivka and Dubovo-Vasylivka to the north of the city and in the villages of Ivanivske and Bohdanivka to the west.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of Russia’s Wagner Group mercenary force, posted a video Saturday allegedly showing coffins he said contained bodies of Ukrainian soldiers being sent to territory held by Kyiv.

In the video, Prigozhin, wearing military gear, said, “We are sending another shipment of Ukrainian army fighters home. They fought bravely and perished. That’s why the latest truck will take them back to their motherland.”

The British intelligence update on Twitter said Bakhmut is vulnerable to Russian attacks on three sides, but that Ukraine is reinforcing the areas with elite units.

Meanwhile, Russia’s defense minister visited Russian soldiers in Ukraine Saturday.

The ministry said in a statement on the messaging app Telegram that Sergei Shoigu “inspected the forward command post of one of the formations of the Eastern Military District in the South Donetsk direction.”

Shoigu has been criticized for Russia’s poor performance in its war against Ukraine. In a video released Saturday, the military chief was seen handing out medals to Russian military forces.

Zelenskyy in Lviv

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spent a second day in Lviv in Ukraine’s west on Saturday, in a meeting of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, he said in his nightly address.

Zelenskyy said they discussed security, energy, social protection, financial issues and anti-corruption matters.

The United for Justice conference continued for a second day, including discussion on the investigation and punishment of Russian fighters for abuse, rape, and other violent crimes committed in the occupied territory.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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“Italy here we come!” cheered the young men, in Urdu and Pashto, as they filmed themselves standing on a boat sailing in bright blue waters.

They were among around 180 migrants — Afghans, Pakistanis, Syrians, Iranians, Palestinians, Somalis and others — who left Turkey hoping for a better, or simply safer, life in Europe.

Days later, dozens of them were dead. So far, 70 bodies have been recovered from the Feb. 26 shipwreck near the small beach town of Steccato di Cutro, but only 80 survivors have been found, indicating that the death toll was higher. On Sunday, firefighter divers spotted another body in the Ionian Sea and were working to bring it ashore, state TV said.

The tragedy has highlighted the lesser-known migration route from Turkey to Italy. It also brought into focus hardening Italian and European migration policies, which have since 2015 shifted away from search and rescue, prioritizing instead border surveillance. Questions are also being asked of the Italian government about why the coast guard wasn’t deployed until it was too late.

Based on court documents, testimony from survivors and relatives and statements by authorities, the AP has reconstructed what is known of the events that led to the shipwreck and the questions left unanswered.

The fateful journey

In the early hours of Wednesday, Feb. 22, the migrants — including dozens of families with small children — boarded a leisure boat on a beach near Izmir following a truck journey from Istanbul and a forest crossing by foot.

They set out from the shore. But just three hours into their voyage, the vessel suffered an engine failure. Still in high seas, an old wooden gulet — a traditional Turkish style boat — arrived as a replacement.

The smugglers and their assistants told the migrants to hide below deck as they continued their journey west. Without life vests or seats, they crammed on the floor, going out for air, or to relieve themselves, only briefly. Survivors said the second boat also had engine problems, stopping several times along the way.

Three days later, Feb. 25, at 10:26 p.m. a European Union Border and Coast Guard plane patrolling the Ionian Sea spotted a boat heading toward the Italian coast. The agency, known as Frontex, said the vessel “showed no signs of distress” and was navigating at 6 knots, with “good” buoyancy.

Frontex sent an email to Italian authorities at 11:03 p.m. reporting one person on the upper deck and possibly more people below, detected by thermal cameras. No life jackets could be seen. The email mentioned that a satellite phone call had been made from the boat to Turkey.

In response to the Frontex sighting, the case was classified as an “activity of the maritime police.” Italy’s Guardia di Finanza, or financial police, which also has a border and customs role, dispatched two patrols to “intercept the vessel.”

As the Turkish boat approached Italy’s Calabrian coast Saturday evening, some of the migrants on the boat were allowed to message family, to inform them of their imminent arrival and release the 8,000-euro ($8520) fee that had been agreed upon with the smugglers.

The men navigating the boat told the anxious passengers they needed to wait a few more hours for disembarkation, to avoid getting caught, according to survivors’ testimony to investigators.

At 3:48 a.m., Feb. 26, the financial police vessels returned to base, without having reached the boat due to bad weather. The police contacted the coast guard to ask if they had any vessels out at sea “in case there was a critical situation” according to communication obtained by the Italian ANSA agency and confirmed by AP. The coast guard replied they did not. “OK, it was just to inform you,” a police officer said before hanging up.

Just minutes later, at around 4 a.m., local fishermen on Italy’s southern coast spotted lights in the darkness. People were waving their cell phone flashlights desperately from atop a boat stuck on a sand bank.

The suspected smugglers grabbed black tubes, possibly life jackets, and jumped into the water to save themselves, according to survivors. Waves continued smashing into the vessel until it suddenly ripped apart. The sound was like that of an explosion, survivors said. People fell into the frigid water. Many could not swim.

Italian police arrived on the scene at 4:30 a.m., the same time that the coast guard says it received the first emergency calls. It took the coast guard another hour to get there. By then, bodies were already being pulled out of the water with people screaming for help while others attempted to resuscitate the victims.

The young victims

There were dozens of young children on board the boat. Almost none survived. The body of a 3-year-old was recovered Saturday.

Among those who lived was a Syrian father and his eldest child, but his wife and three other children did not. The body of his youngest, age 5, was still missing four days later.

One Afghan man drove down from Germany, searching for his 15-year-old nephew who had contacted family saying he was in Italy. But the boy also died before setting foot on land.

The uncle asked that his name, and that of his nephew, not be published as he had yet to inform the boy’s father. The boy’s mother died two years ago.

The aftermath

Prosecutors have launched two investigations — one into the suspected smugglers and another looking at whether there were delays by Italian authorities in responding to the migrant boat.

A Turkish man and two Pakistani men, among the 80 survivors, have been detained, suspected of being smugglers or their accomplices. A fourth suspect, a Turkish national, is on the run.

A day after the shipwreck, Frontex told the AP it had spotted a “heavily overcrowded” boat and reported it to Italian authorities. In a second statement, though, Frontex clarified that only one person had been visible on deck but that its thermal cameras indicated there could be more people below.

In an interview with the AP, retired Coast Guard Admiral Vittorio Alessandro said the coast guard’s boats are made to withstand rough seas and that they should have gone out.

Alessandro added that the photos released by Frontex showed the water level was high, suggesting the boat was heavy.

The coast guard said Frontex alerted Italian authorities in charge of “law enforcement,” copying the Italian Coast Guard “for their awareness” only. Frontex said it is up to national authorities to classify events as search and rescue.

“The issue is simple in its tragic nature: No emergency communication from Frontex reached our authorities. We were not warned that this boat was in danger of sinking,” Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni said Saturday.

Alessandro, however, lamented how over the years the coast guard’s activities — which previously occurred even far out in international waters — have been progressively curtailed by successive governments.

“Rescue operations at sea should not be replaced by police operations. Rescue must prevail,” he said.
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Voters in Estonia are going to the polls Sunday to cast their votes in a general election.

The government of Prime Minister Kaja Kallas’ liberal Reform party is one of Europe’s most steadfast supporters of Ukraine.

Political analysts say Kallas and Reform will likely emerge as winners against Martin Helme and the nationalist far-right EKRE party.

Kallas, if she wins, has promised to keep Estonia on a course to adopt more green energy and to continue to accept Ukrainian refugees.

Meanwhile, Helme has told his supporters that a EKRE victory would bring a halt to the transition to green energy and a halt to the influx of Ukranian refugees.

Both leaders have said they are looking forward to heading the next coalition government.

Almost half of Estonia’s eligible voters have already cast their ballots electronically.

Estonia broke away from the Soviet Union in 1991 and has gone down a Western path, joining both NATO and the European Union. 
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Ukrainian diver Stanislav Oliferchyk proudly bears the name of his late grandfather, who died in brutalized Mariupol. Russia’s troops turned the Ukrainian port city into a killing zone in the process of capturing it. The elder Stanislav could no longer get the cancer treatment he needed in the ruins, his grandson says. He was 74 when he died last October.

Another victim of the months-long Russian siege of Mariupol was its gleaming aquatic center. Oliferchyk had planned to use the refurbished sports complex as his training base for the 2024 Paris Olympics. But it was bombed the same day last March as the city’s drama theater. The theater airstrike was the single deadliest known attack against civilians to date in the year-old Russian invasion. An Associated Press investigation determined that close to 600 people died.

So it takes no leap of the imagination to understand why Mariupol-born Oliferchyk is horrified by the idea that he and other war-traumatized Ukrainian athletes might have to put their anger and consciences aside and compete against counterparts from Russia and ally Belarus at next year’s Olympics.

“I’m angry most of the time. I just can’t stand it anymore when shelling happens,” said the 26-year-old Oliferchyk, a European champion in 3-meter mixed synchronized diving in 2019. “I want Russia to let us live in peace and stay away from us.”

Defying fury from Ukraine and misgivings from other nations, the International Olympic Committee is exploring whether to allow Russians and Belarusians back into international sports and the Paris Games. The IOC says it is mission-bound to promote unity and peace — particularly when war is raging. It also cites United Nations human rights experts who argue, on non-discrimination grounds, that athletes and sports judges from Russia and Belarus shouldn’t be banned simply for the passports they hold.

For Ukrainian athletes setting their sights on Paris, the possibility of sharing Olympic pools, fields and arenas with Russian and Belarusian competitors is so repellent that some say they’d not go if it happens.

Sisters Maryna and Vladyslava Aleksiiva — who won Olympic bronze in artistic swimming’s team competition at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 — are among those who say they’d have to boycott.

“We must,” Maryna said during an Associated Press interview at their training pool in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.

Russia is the giant of their sport, previously called synchronized swimming, having won all the gold medals at the past six Olympics.

Completing each other’s sentences, the Ukrainian twins added: “Our moral feelings don’t allow us to stand near … these people.”

Oliferchyk worries that enmity could spill over if Ukrainians encounter Russians and Belarusians in Paris — a likely scenario given that Olympians will be housed and dine together in accommodation overlooking the River Seine in the city’s northern suburbs.

“Anything can happen, even a fight,” Oliferchyk said. “There simply cannot be any handshakes between us.”

Having to train in the midst of war also puts Ukraine’s Olympic hopefuls at a disadvantage. Russian strikes have destroyed training venues. Air raids disrupt training sessions. Athletes have lost family members and friends, or are consumed by worries that they will. Because Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has also closed the country’s airspace, traveling to international competitions has become an arduous odyssey — often of long train rides to neighboring Poland, for onward flights from there.

“Our athletes train while cruise missiles are flying, bombs are flying,” Ukrainian Sports Minister Vadym Guttsait said in an AP interview.

He recalled a meeting he took part in between IOC president Thomas Bach and Ukrainian cyclists given refuge in Swizterland.

“Bach asked one of the cyclists how she was doing,” the minister recounted. “She started crying. He asked why. She said that day they (Russian forces) attacked her city, where her parents were, and she was very nervous.”

“This is how every athlete feels about what is happening in Ukraine,” the minister said.

Ukraine’s artistic swim team, including the Aleksiiva sisters, used to train in the Lokomotiv sports center in Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city. A Russian strike with powerful S-300 missiles wrecked the complex in September, the region’s governor, Oleh Syniehubov, said at the time. He posted photos showing a giant crater and severe damage to the exterior.

Maryna Aleksiiva said they used to think of the sports center as “our second home.” Their substitute pool in Kyiv doesn’t have the same broad depth of water, making it less suitable for practicing their underwater acrobatics, the sisters said. On a recent morning when they spoke to the AP, air raid sirens interrupted their training and they had to get out of the pool and take refuge in a bomb shelter until the all-clear sounded.

The power also flickered briefly off at times. Russia has been systematically bombarding Ukraine’s electricity infrastructure for months. When attacks shut off the pool’s heating, the water gets so cold that the sisters train in full-body wetsuits — far from ideal for their elegant sport.

“It’s hard to move,” Vladyslava said.

The terrors of war also take a mental toll.

“Every day we read the news — explosion, explosion, air alert,” Maryna said. “We feel so nervous about our relatives.”

Oliferchyk said he cannot imagine a handshake between Ukrainian and Russian athletes for “the next 50, 100 years.”

The Neptune arena in Mariupol where he wanted to train for Paris was wrecked by a Russian strike last March 16. As with Mariupol’s drama theater also destroyed that day, civilians were sheltering at the sports complex from bombardments. They included pregnant women who moved there after a Russian strike the previous week devastated a city maternity hospital. Video posted on Facebook by the region’s governor showed the Neptune’s shattered front and a gaping hole in its roof.

The IOC’s possible pathway out of sports exile for Russians and Belarusians would see them compete as “neutral athletes,” without national flags, colors or anthems.

That idea is a non-starter for Ukraine’s sports minister and athletes who resent that would-be Olympians from Russia and Belarus aren’t taking a stand against the invasion.

“They just do nothing and say nothing. And precisely because of their silence and inaction, all this horror is happening,” Oliferchyk said. “A neutral flag is not an option. It is not possible.”
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Climate activists splashed a dark liquid over an artwork Saturday near the German parliament building. Desecrating the art, engraved with key articles from the country’s constitution, drew condemnation from the speaker of parliament and other lawmakers.

The Last Generation group said supporters symbolically “soaked in ‘oil’” the outdoor installation — a series of glass plates on which 19 articles from the German Constitution setting out fundamental rights are engraved. They pasted posters over the work that read, “Oil or fundamental rights?”

The group said in a statement that “the German government is not protecting our fundamental rights” and argued that continuing to burn oil is incompatible with doing so.

Parliament Speaker Barbel Bas said she was appalled by the action and has “no understanding for it.” She said the work by Israeli artist Dani Karavan, titled “Grundgesetz 49” after the German name of the post-World War II constitution and the year when it was drawn up, is a reminder to respect and protect rights such as freedom of expression and assembly.

“Those are the fundamental rights on which the demonstrators from Last Generation themselves base the justification for their actions,” Bas said in a statement. “I can only hope that the glass plates of the artwork were not permanently damaged.”

The work was wiped clean by Saturday afternoon. Last Generation has repeatedly drawn attention and anger over the past year with actions that have included blocking major roads and throwing food at famous paintings.
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Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Saturday announced a gender equality law that will require more equal representation of women and men in politics, business and other spheres of public life.

The Equal Representation Law will apply gender parity measures to electoral lists, the boards of directors of big companies, and governing boards of professional associations.

Sanchez made the announcement during a Socialist party rally ahead of International Women’s Day on March 8. It will be approved during Tuesday’s cabinet meeting before going for debate in parliament.

He said the government was “not only taking a step in favor of feminism, but in favor of Spanish society as a whole.”

It is the latest in a series of equality measures announced by the leftist coalition government. In December, lawmakers passed a transgender rights bill, as well as a pioneering law covering sexual and reproductive heath that, in a first for a European country, offered state-funded paid leave for women who suffer from painful periods.

“If they represent half of society, half of the political and economic power has to be women’s,” Sanchez said Saturday.

The Equal Representation law will require women to make up 40% of the management of any listed company with more than 250 workers and an annual turnover of 50 million euros ($53 million).

In politics, the law will require parties to offer equal numbers of male and female candidates during elections, with the aim of increasing gender parity in parliament. At the moment women make up 44% of Congress and 39% of the Senate.

It will also require professional associations to have at least 40% women on their boards, as well as juries for any awards financed with public money.
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Italy’s government will hold a cabinet meeting near the southern seaside town where dozens of bodies washed ashore after a migrant ship broke up on rocks last month, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Saturday.

Speaking to reporters in Abu Dhabi after meeting United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan to discuss migration flows among other topics, Meloni rejected accusations that her government had failed to act to prevent the incident.

She also dismissed calls from the opposition for Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi to resign.

“Frankly, they ask for the resignation of a different minister every day,” she said.

The right-wing Meloni has been criticized for not traveling to the site of the shipwreck in the southern region of Calabria, which was visited instead by President Sergio Mattarella.

Asked if she had plans to visit the area, Meloni said the government would soon hold a cabinet meeting there to discuss migration issues.

“The best thing we can do to honor the victims is to look at what can be done to avoid it happening again,” she said.

The latest shipwreck has intensified a debate on migration in Europe and Italy, where the Meloni government’s tough new laws for migrant rescue charities have drawn criticism from the United Nations and others.

Meloni has called on fellow European leaders to do more to halt illegal immigration and prevent further tragedies at sea.

“I don’t think a single day has gone by since I became prime minister in which I didn’t work on this issue … amid a generalized lack of interest on the part of others,” she said.
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Russia’s defense minister visited Russian soldiers in Ukraine on Saturday.

The ministry said in a statement on the messaging app Telegram that Sergei Shoigu “inspected the forward command post of one of the formations of the Eastern Military District in the South Donetsk direction.”

Shoigu has been criticized for Russia’s poor performance in its war against Ukraine. In a video released Saturday, the defense minister was seen handing out medals to Russian military forces.

Meanwhile, the British Defense Ministry said Saturday that “intense fighting” is underway in and around the Ukrainian Donbas town of Bakhmut.

Victory in Bakhmut would be a stepping stone to capturing the surrounding Donbas region, an important strategic goal. Ukraine says the city has little intrinsic strategic value but notes huge losses there could determine the course of the war.

The British intelligence update on Twitter said Bakhmut is vulnerable to Russian attacks on three sides, but Ukraine is reinforcing the areas with elite units.

Two key bridges in Bakhmut have been recently destroyed in the area, the report said, “including a vital bridge connecting the city to the last main supply route from Bakhmut to the city of Chasiv Yar.”

According to the Defense Ministry, Ukrainian-held resupply routes out of the town are “increasingly limited.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his daily address that he was engaged in meetings and negotiations with a number of entities on Friday.

The president said the main focus of his meetings has been holding Russia accountable for its actions. “We are doing everything to ensure that the International Criminal Court is successful in punishing Russian war criminals,” the Ukrainian leader said.

The United States announced Friday a new package of military aid for Ukraine that totals about $400 million, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

“This military assistance package includes more ammunition for U.S.-provided HIMARS and howitzers, which Ukraine is using so effectively to defend itself, as well as ammunition for Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles, Armored Vehicle Launched Bridges, demolitions munitions and equipment, and other maintenance, training and support,” he said.

The package will be funded using the presidential drawdown authority, which authorizes the president to transfer articles and services from U.S. stocks without congressional approval during an emergency, Blinken said in announcing the aid.

The Armored Vehicle Launched Bridge is a portable, 18-meter folding metal bridge that is carried on top of a tank body. Providing that system now could help Ukrainian troops as they launch an expected spring offensive, making it easier for them to cross rivers to battle Russian forces.

Including this latest package, the U.S. has now provided more than $32 billion in military aid to Ukraine. The vehicle bridges and ammunition in the package can be delivered quickly to the front lines because they will be taken from existing Pentagon stocks.

European Union countries also are working to deliver thousands of shells to Ukraine under a $1 billion program.

Particularly significant will be the delivery of 155 mm NATO-standard howitzer rounds that are urgently needed in advance of an intense spring campaign, according to the Financial Times, citing anonymous EU officials. This ammunition, according to the FT report, is critical to keep Ukraine in a fight in which Russia fires on average an estimated four shells for every Ukrainian shell fired.

“We need as much ammunition as possible. There are many more Russians here than we have ammunition to destroy them,” Volodymyr Nazarenko, a deputy commander in the national guard of Ukraine, told Ukrainian NV Radio.

Top US justice official

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland made a surprise visit to Ukraine on Friday to attend a conference on justice and war crimes.

The U.S. Justice Department said Garland held several meetings at the conference in the western city of Lviv to reaffirm “our determination to hold Russia accountable for crimes committed in its unjust and unprovoked invasion against its sovereign neighbor.”

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press.
…

Archaeologists say they have uncovered a “unique” cache of well-preserved spices, from strands of saffron to peppercorns and ginger, on the wreck of a royal ship that sank off Sweden’s Baltic coast more than 500 years ago.

The wreck of the Gribshund, owned by King Hans of Denmark and Norway, has lain off the coast off Ronneby since 1495, when it is thought to have caught fire and sank as the monarch attended a political meeting ashore in Sweden.

Rediscovered by sports divers in the 1960s, sporadic excavations of the ship have taken place in recent years. Previous dives recovered large items such as figureheads and timber. Now an excavation led by Brendan Foley, an archaeological scientist at Lund University, has found the spices buried in the silt of the boat.

“The Baltic is strange – it’s low oxygen, low temperature, low salinity, so many organic things are well preserved in the Baltic where they wouldn’t be well preserved elsewhere in the world ocean system,” said Foley. “But to find spices like this is quite extraordinary.”

The spices would have been a symbol of high status, as only the wealthy could afford goods such as saffron or cloves that were imported from outside Europe. They would have been travelling with King Hans as he attended the meeting in Sweden.

Lund University researcher Mikael Larsson, who has been studying the finds, said: “This is the only archaeological context where we’ve found saffron. So, it’s very unique and it’s very special.”
…

Protests have intensified in Greece days after the country’s deadliest rail disaster, as thousands of students took to the streets in several cities and protesters clashed with police in Athens.

At least 57 people — including several university students — died when a passenger train slammed into a freight carrier just before midnight Tuesday. The government has blamed human error, and a railway official faces manslaughter charges.

Friday night’s violence was not extensive, and the protests were otherwise peaceful. Clashes also occurred in Greece’s second-largest city, Thessaloniki.

In Athens, riot police outside parliament fired tear gas and flash grenades to disperse a small number of protesters who hurled petrol bombs at them, set fire to garbage bins, and challenged police cordons. No arrests or injuries were reported.

The protests called by left-wing and student groups were fueled by anger at the perceived lack of safety measures in Greece’s rail network. The largest on Friday was in the central Greek city of Larissa, not far from the crash site, where several thousand people marched peacefully. Similar protests were held Wednesday and Thursday.

First funeral In northern Greece

The accident at Tempe, 380 kilometers north of Athens, shocked the nation and highlighted safety shortcomings in the small and dated rail network.

As recovery teams spent a third day scouring the wreckage Friday and families began receiving the remains of their loved ones, the funeral for the first of the victims was held in northern Greece.

Athina Katsara, a 34-year-old mother of an infant boy, was being buried in her hometown of Katerini. Her injured husband was hospitalized and unable to attend.

Harrowing identification process

The force of the head-on collision and resulting fire complicated the task of determining the death toll. Officials worked round the clock to match parts of dismembered and burned bodies with tissue samples to establish the number.

The bodies were returned to families in closed caskets following identification through next-of-kin DNA samples — a process followed for all the remains.

Relatives of passengers still listed as unaccounted for waited outside a Larissa hospital for test results. Among them was Mirella Ruci, whose 22-year-old son, Denis, remained missing.

“My son is not on any official list so far, and I have no information. I am pleading with anyone who may have seen him, in rail car 5, seat 22, to contact me if they may have seen him,” Ruci, who struggled to stop her voice from cracking, told reporters.

Flags at half-staff

Flags at the ancient Acropolis, parliament and other public buildings around Greece remained at half-staff on the third day of national mourning. National rail services were halted by a strike for a second day, with more strikes planned over the weekend.

Police early Friday searched a rail coordination office in Larissa, removing evidence as part of an ongoing investigation. The facility’s station manager was arrested and charged with multiple counts of negligent manslaughter.

Stelios Sourlas, a lawyer representing a 23-year-old victim of the collision, said responsibility for the deaths went beyond the station manager.

“The station manager may have the principal responsibility … but the responsibility is also broader: There are the rail operators and public officials whose job it was to ensure that safety measures and procedures were properly in place,” Sourlas said.

Rail unions say the network was poorly maintained despite upgrades to provide faster trains in recent years.

Election plans delayed?

Greece’s center-right government had been widely expected Friday to call national elections for early April, but the announcement and likely date was likely to be delayed.

The passenger train involved in the crash was traveling along Greece’s busiest route, from Athens to Thessaloniki. The freight train was heading in the opposite direction, on the same track.

Two of the victims were identified Friday as Cypriot students Anastasia Adamidou and Kyprianos Papaioannou. Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides said the state would cover the cost of their repatriation and funerals.

Neighboring Albania’s Prime Minister Edi Rama announced that flags on public buildings will be lowered to half-staff Sunday as a mark of respect for the victims in Greece.
…

U.S. President Joe Biden is focused on shoring up NATO unity in supporting Ukraine in his meeting Friday with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz at the White House, said John Kirby, National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, in an interview with VOA on Friday.

Dismissing concerns about growing war fatigue on both sides of the Atlantic, Kirby said Biden was confident that Western allies’ unity remained “resilient, resolved and unified.”

He repeated calls from the administration urging Beijing not to supply weapons to help Russia, warning of a “blow to China’s standing in the international community” should it decide to do so.

This transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.

VOA: President Biden is meeting with Chancellor Scholz. Both met [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy recently; they’ll be comparing notes on their support for Ukraine. But will they also be speaking about pathways to peace?

John Kirby, National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications: I think both of these leaders share the Ukrainians’ desire for a peace that is just and fair and sustainable, a peace that supports Ukraine’s sovereignty and maintains their independence. Also, they both agree that it’s got to be a peace that President Zelenskyy can sign on to; it’s got to be done in full consultation, full coordination with the Ukrainians. Otherwise, there’s no way it’s going to ever really get off to start and it’s not going to be sustainable.

VOA: Just last week, there were 10,000 people in Germany protesting sending arms to Ukraine. So, there’s political pressure on Chancellor Scholz. Is the president concerned that this might create a crack in NATO unity?

Kirby: No, the president is not at all concerned about a crack in allied unity. If you just look back at the last year, the allies had been incredibly resilient, resolved and unified in terms of supporting Ukraine. And he’s convinced – especially after coming home now from meeting with the Bucharest Nine, meeting with his counterpart in Poland, and of course meeting with President Zelenskyy in Kyiv – he’s even more convinced that that allied unity will continue.

We’re not taking anything for granted. We know we have to continue to work on providing the kinds of support to Ukraine that they need most. But he’s confident that the allies are going to be able to stay together.

VOA: I understand that Ukraine will be the focus. But will the president also make the argument that it is strategically risky for Germany to be so trade-dependent on China, the same way it has proven to be risky for them to be so dependent on Russian gas? Will the president urge the chancellor to take a tougher stance against Beijing?

Kirby: Today’s visit is really about how we can stay coordinated in supporting Ukraine. And I would point you to what Chancellor Scholz said yesterday in terms of his concerns about the potential for China to provide lethal weaponry to Russia and his call that what China should be focusing on is convincing Russia to withdraw, to take their troops out of Ukraine. That’s an illegal invasion to begin with. But as for economic practices, those are sovereign decisions that Chancellor Scholz has to make on behalf of the German people.

VOA: On China potentially arming Russia, U.N. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield recently said that should China do this, that’s a red line for the administration. Is the administration prepared to back up that threat?

Kirby: I don’t think it’d be helpful to get into hypotheticals at this point. You’ve heard Secretary [of State Antony] Blinken talk about this. He’s mentioned this privately with his counterpart, his Chinese counterpart, that clearly, we don’t want to see them move in this direction. They have not done so, though they haven’t taken it off the table. And we have been very honest about the fact that there will be ramifications for doing that. Clearly, at the very least one of them is a blow to China’s standing in [the] international community.

China has a choice to make. Does it really want to come down on the side of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin? Does it really want to assist Mr. Putin in killing innocent Ukrainians? Because that’s what this kind of a move would be. And if China cares about their international standing, one would think that they would find this not in their best interest.

VOA: Let’s talk more about this name-and-shame strategy. In the lead-up of the Russian invasion, you said that you had intelligence that Putin is going to do it, and then he did it. You’re doing the same thing with President Xi Jinping, saying that China could potentially arm Russia. But if the strategy did not work to deter Putin from invading Ukraine, why would you believe that the strategy would work to deter Xi from helping Putin? I don’t see either of these men being the type that could be easily shamed or intimidated.

Kirby: This isn’t about shaming. It’s about sharing our concerns privately with the Chinese and also sharing those concerns publicly about indications that we see potentially that China might move in this direction. China has a choice to make. President Xi has a choice to make. And we strongly urged him to make the right choice here, to not make it easier for Mr. Putin to kill innocent Ukrainian people.

VOA: And that kind of approach you believe will be an effective deterrent?

Kirby: That’s going to be up to President Xi and the Chinese.

VOA: We know now that Iran and North Korea have supplied arms to Russia. Other than Belarus, what other third country could potentially be a conduit to funnel Chinese arms to Russia?

Kirby: That’s a great question for Vladimir Putin. Who else is he reaching out to, to try to get weapons and capabilities to continue the slaughter in Ukraine? We know that the Iranians are part and parcel of that effort. We know the North Koreans have provided, at least in some cases, artillery ammunition to the Wagner Group. And I think President Putin should have to speak for who else [is he] reaching out to, to continue these murderous ways.

VOA: Surely you must be monitoring these countries. Our sources point to potentially Myanmar as one of those countries. Do you see any intelligence to support this?

Kirby: I don’t have any other third-party countries to speak to today.

VOA: We spoke yesterday about the $620 million arms sales to Taiwan. Is this how the administration is helping Taiwan prepare, to stock up munitions in case of a Chinese blockade?

Kirby: This is about helping Taiwan with their self-defense capabilities. Specifically, it’s about munitions for their F-16 fighter aircraft. We work in lockstep with them about their needs, but it’s very much in keeping with our commitment, both legally and from a moral perspective, to make sure that they have the sufficient self-defense capabilities that they need.

VOA: With this timing, could it also provide Beijing with an excuse to funnel arms to Russia?

Kirby: That’s a question for President Xi. There should be no reason for him to want to provide arms to Russia. There should be no reason for him to want to help Mr. Putin kill innocent Ukrainian people. And that’s what this would be if they moved on with that decision.

What’s going into President Xi’s calculus is really a question for him. The Taiwan arms sales are in keeping with our obligations under the Taiwan Relations Act, and our belief that we must continue to help Taiwan have sufficient self-defense capabilities. This is separate and distinct from what’s going on in Ukraine.

VOA: Moving on to Iran, is the administration now seeing Iran as a global threat rather than a regional one?

Kirby: Iran has remained certainly a regional threat for quite some time, and that continues. They are fomenting instability in the Levant throughout the Middle East, they continue to support terrorist networks, they continue to threaten maritime traffic in the Gulf and beyond. And now they are directly impacting a war in Europe. So certainly, they have stretched their malign impact well beyond the region.

VOA: Do you now consider them a global threat?

Kirby: I’m not going to characterize them one way or the other, other than saying they are a malign actor in the region, and they are now stretching that influence beyond the Middle East. The other part about this that is concerning — and we’ve talked about this — is that they seek Russian capabilities in return. So, if that all comes to pass, then Iran would have the benefit of Russian capabilities, which makes them even more of a threat to [Western] friends and partners in the Middle East.

VOA: Any update on the poisoning of the Iranian schoolgirls? You said yesterday that you don’t know what the cause is. Do you know more at this point? UNICEF has offered to help. Is the U.S. prepared to offer the same?

Kirby: I’m afraid we don’t have more information about these reports of poisonings. They are deeply disturbing. We want the Iranian government – they say they’re going to investigate. We want that investigation to be thorough, complete and transparent with the Iranian people as well as the rest of the world. Little girls should not have to worry about their safety when they go to school. They should only have to worry about their grades.
…

Belgium’s Constitutional Court on Friday upheld a prisoner exchange treaty with Iran that could lead to the swap of a convicted Iranian diplomat for a jailed Belgian aid worker. 

Belgian lawmakers cleared the treaty in July, but it has been held up by legal challenges from an exiled Iranian opposition group. 

“The court rejects the action for annulment,” the Constitutional Court said in a press release. 

However, the judges also specified that the victims of any detainee being proposed for transfer must have the right to contest the specific case in court. 

“Thus, when the government takes a decision to transfer, it must inform the victims of the relevant convicted person in such a way that they can effectively seek a review of the legality [of the transfer],” it said.  

Aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele, arrested while on a visit to Iran in February 2022, was sentenced in January to 40 years in prison and 74 lashes on charges including spying. Brussels has said the charges are fake.  

His distraught family has appealed to the government to do its utmost to get him released. 

Following Friday’s judgment, campaigners for Vandecasteele’s release tweeted there was “still a [long] way to see Olivier free but tonight there might finally be a light at the end of the tunnel!” 

Convicted in bomb plot

Iran has called for the release of Assadollah Assadi, sentenced to 20 years in prison in Belgium in 2021 over a foiled 2018 bomb plot. His was the first trial of an Iranian official for suspected terrorism in Europe since Iran’s 1979 revolution. 

The exiled National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), whose rally near Paris had been the bomb plot’s target, has insisted that Assadi remain in jail. 

The NCRI said it would make use of the Constitutional Court’s stipulation that any proposed transfer must be open to legal challenge. 

“While the court did not annul the transfer agreement between Belgium and Iran, it has provided the plaintiffs with the opportunity to seek legal redress,” Shahin Gobadi, a member of the group’s foreign affairs committee, said in a statement. 

“The National Council of Resistance and the plaintiffs are exercising this right to prevent the release of this terrorist.”  

Iran has called the Paris attack allegations a “false flag” stunt by the NCRI, which it in turn considers a terrorist group. 

Some Belgian lawmakers have voiced concern that the treaty might lead to “hostage diplomacy” and put other Belgians at risk of detention. 

It is not clear when a prisoner exchange might happen. 
…

The United States on Friday imposed sanctions on six Russians it said were involved in the arrest, prosecution or abuse of Russian opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza, who was detained last year after speaking out against the war in Ukraine.

Kara-Murza was arrested by Russia in April and declared a “foreign agent.” He is currently being held on suspicion of spreading false information about the armed forces under new laws passed eight days after the February 24, 2022, invasion of Ukraine began.

“The United States reiterates its call for Kara-Murza’s immediate and unconditional release, and is committed to ensuring that Vladimir Putin’s attempts to silence critics will not succeed,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

The sanctions, announced by the Treasury and State departments, target Russians Elena Anatolievna Lenskaya, Andrei Andreevich Zadachin and Danila Yurievich Mikheev for serious human rights abuses under the U.S. Global Magnitsky Act.

The Treasury Department said Zadachin, a Russian special investigator, ordered that a criminal case be filed against Kara-Murza over a speech he made to the Arizona House of Representatives.

It further said that Lenskaya, a judge in Moscow, ordered that Kara-Murza be detained, and that Mikheev had appeared as an expert witness for the Russian government, reviewing video of the speech and providing a report that led to charges against the opposition leader.

Kara-Murza, who holds both British and Russian citizenship and was a pallbearer at the 2018 funeral of U.S. Senator John McCain, was a close aide to opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who was shot dead in central Moscow in 2015.

Twice, in 2015 and 2017, Kara-Murza became suddenly ill in what he said were poisonings by the Russian security services, on both occasions falling into a coma before eventually recovering. Moscow denied involvement.

Kara-Murza has pushed for the United States, Canada, the European Union and Britain to use Magnitsky-style sanctions to target human rights abusers and corrupt actors in Russia, the Treasury Department said.

The U.S. State Department also imposed visa restrictions on Lenskaya and Zadachin, denying them and their immediate families entry into the United States.

In a related action, the State Department imposed sanctions on Russia’s Deputy Minister of Justice Oleg Mikhailovich Sviridenko, Diana Igorevna Mishchenko, who is the judge who ruled that Kara-Murza be arrested, and Ilya Pavlovich Kozlov, the judge who denied Kara-Murza’s appeal of the arrest ruling, the department said.
…

Many journalists, academics and analysts expressed regret after the Slovenian Constitutional Court late last month put on hold parts of a new law on Slovenia’s public broadcaster RTV that the center-left government contends would limit direct political influence in the broadcaster’s work.

The court said parts of the law, prepared by the center-left government, could not be enforced until the court ruled whether they were in line with the Constitution. It did not say when it would rule on the matter, but such rulings often take months.

Meanwhile, the viewership of RTV’s television unit, TV Slovenia, has been falling, and many journalists report continuous pressure on their work by RTV management, which was put in place while the previous center-right government was in power.

There is less and less room for independent reporting at TV Slovenia, while a fall in viewership last year is worrisome, a senior anchor of the evening news, Tanja Staric, told VOA.

She is one of 38 staffers who in October received warnings that they faced dismissal if they breached their contract again. They had entered a studio during a live broadcast to show support for two colleagues they said were under pressure from the director of the TV unit.

Although Staric still has her job, she said the number of news slots she anchors had about halved since October.

Although none of the 38 staffers has been dismissed so far, the warnings, issued by RTV CEO Andrej Grah Whatmough, are still in place. Whatmough was in the group of managers who asked the Constitutional Court to rule on the new law, saying that the law should not change the managers before their mandates expire.

If the law is enforced, it would end the practice of parliament nominating members of the RTV program council.

At present, parliament nominates 21 out of 29 members of the program council, a body that names the broadcaster’s chief executive and approves production plans. The council is not allowed to directly influence editorial decision-making.

The law got the support of 62% of voters in a November referendum, which was demanded by the opposition center-right Slovenian Democratic Party of former Prime Minister Janez Jansa. The party contended that the changes would impact RTV’s independence because they were aimed solely at replacing the current management.

The Constitutional Court did not say what its final ruling could be, but stated that the position of RTV “demands as fast a decision of the Constitutional Court as possible so the Court will immediately proceed” in dealing with the matter.

The European Center for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) expressed concern regarding the fact that the law was put on hold and might not be enforced.

“It is critical that the disproportionate influence of all forms of politics on the RTV governance structures and editorial line is curtailed sooner rather than later and, in that sense, this latest development is worrisome indeed,” Laurens C. Hueting, senior advocacy officer of ECPMF, told VOA.

“The current directors and management at RTV have been accused by staff of unduly pressuring journalists and attempting to engineer a political shift in news and current affairs programming,” he added. “These clashes have already damaged both credibility and viewership, jeopardizing the public broadcaster’s journalistic mission.”

Several popular TV programs have been canceled, shortened or moved to a less prominent channel since the program council appointed Whatmough CEO in 2021.

New TV unit director

In July, Whatmough named Uros Urbanija as director of the broadcaster’s TV unit, a move that sparked protests from staffers and the Slovenia Association of Journalists. Urbanija was director of the government communication office under Jansa until June 2022, when the new center-left government took over after the general election.

Whatmough and Urbanija both deny pressuring journalists and say they are acting in line with professional standards.

However, on March 1, TV Slovenia for the first time broadcast a public street protest live, a change from its tradition of providing only basic news reports about such demonstrations.

The thousands of protesters demanding a 20% increase in pensions had been organized by the Voice of Pensioners initiative led by Pavel Rupar, a former parliamentarian aligned with Jansa’s Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS). Rupar told reporters, however, that the protest was in no way connected to the SDS.

RTV did not reply to VOA’s question about why it opted for a live broadcast of the protest. It also did not reply to VOA’s request for the latest viewership ratings.

Most analysts say that ruling parties from both sides have pressured the public broadcaster since Slovenia gained independence in 1991, but that interference has never been as intense as when the SDS was in power from 2020 to 2022.

Although Prime Minister Robert Golob, who took office June 1, 2022, had said that enabling the independence of RTV would be one of the main goals of his government, nothing has changed so far.

“The law on RTV was poorly prepared, so I was not surprised by the Constitutional Court’s decision [to put it on hold],” Dejan Vercic, a professor in the University of Ljubljana’s faculty of social sciences, told VOA.

“Maybe the government wants this conflict at RTV to continue in order to keep the attention of the public away from important matters, which include the health, tax and pension reforms,” he added. “The fact is that the position of media and journalists in Slovenia is rapidly worsening.”

Meanwhile, nominations of RTV’s new program council continue in line with the new law, although the new council cannot take over until the Constitutional Court approves the law.

Looking for a solution

Culture Minister Asta Vrecko, who oversees the media, told reporters that the ministry was “intensively working” on how to resolve the situation at RTV and that she hoped the court would soon approve the new law.

The 8th of March Institute, a civil society group that actively supported the new law in a referendum campaign, said people were asking the institute what could be done to improve the situation at the RTV.

“We are looking into what we … can do for our public medium at this moment. We are in contact with other organizations and are looking for options,” the institute told its supporters in a statement.

Staric said that RTV would survive the present limbo but added that its role in society would be reduced because it might lose even more viewers.

TV Slovenia runs a 24/7 operation and is one of the most popular TV channels in the country. The public broadcaster is financed predominantly by subscriptions that most households in Slovenia are obliged to pay.
…

U.S. President Joe Biden will welcome German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to the White House Friday for discussions on continued support for Ukraine and bilateral cooperation on a range of global security and economic issues. 

The leaders first met in February of last year shortly after Scholz took office, and the visit comes after marking the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

“We’ve closely coordinated our support to Ukraine throughout this conflict, including through joint announcements in January to provide infantry fighting vehicles and tanks,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters during a Thursday briefing.

“Germany has provided significant air defense support to Ukraine, including a Patriot battery; the IRIS-T air defense system, which is an infrared seeking system; and five multiple — multiple launch rocket systems,” he said.

Kirby said discussing additional support for Ukraine is high on the agenda for the Friday’s meeting. He also said the United States would be announcing a new package of military aid for Ukraine later in the day.

Scholz addressed the German parliament Thursday, calling on China to use its influence with Russia to convince that nation to withdraw its troops from Ukraine and not to provide Moscow with additional weapons. 

Thursday, Kirby said the U.S. has communicated privately and publicly with China about providing weapons to Russia. 

“We believe it’s not in China’s best interest to move forward in that regard and they should see it the same way,” he said.

Speaking to reporters in Berlin ahead of his departure for Washington, Scholz was asked why he is traveling to Washington to meet with Biden in person when they could have the same conversation via video link. 

He said the two leaders talk on the phone regularly but meeting face to face “is part of the quality of our relationship,” as it should be “in a good life.” He said he sees it as a necessity in a world “where a lot of things have become very complicated.” 

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

Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison by a Belarus court.

Bialiatski is the founder of Viasna, a prominent human rights group in Belarus that has provided legal and financial support to protesters, following a wave of unrest in 2020, following disputed election results that returned Belarus strongman President Alexander Lukashenko back into office, a position he has held  for over 30 years.

Lukashenko, a frequent ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, is often called Europe’s “last dictator.”   

Bialiatski has said he is being persecuted for political reasons.  

Bialiatski was among the three co-recipients of last year’s Nobel Peace Prize, alongside a Russian and Ukrainian human rights group.
…

Anger is mounting in Greece over lax railway safety with the search for survivors in the nation’s deadliest train crash having ended Friday and the death toll having risen to at least 57 people.

Protests were called for Friday in the capital, Athens, and several major cities across Greece. Rail unions also urged workers to strike for a second day to protest working conditions and a lack of government action to address rail system safety standards.

Firefighters and volunteers say final inspection of mangled cars would be completed by midday before fleets of cranes and heavy machinery moved into the site of the crash in northern Greece to clear out the wreckage and restore the operation of Greece’s faulty railway network.

A Greek government spokesperson said the stationmaster on duty near the site of Tuesday’s train collision has admitted to being guilty of negligence.

The stationmaster for the Larissa station, who has not been publicly identified, appeared before prosecutors Thursday as investigators examine why a passenger train and a freight train traveling toward each other were allowed on the same track.

A police official said Wednesday the stationmaster faced misdemeanor charges of mass deaths through negligence and causing grievous bodily harm through negligence, Reuters reported.

The collision occurred late Tuesday near the city of Tempe, about 380 kilometers north of Athens.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in a televised address Wednesday after visiting the crash site that it appeared the cause was a “tragic human error.” He promised a full investigation.

Transportation Minister Kostas Karamanlis resigned Wednesday, accepting responsibility for the accident.

Karamanlis said the Greek railway system was “not up to 21st century standards” when he took office. “In these 3.5 years we have made every effort to improve this reality,” he said. “Unfortunately, our efforts have not been sufficient to prevent such a bad incident. And this is very heavy for all of us and me personally.”

He said resigning was “the minimum sign of respect to the memory of the people who died so unjustly.”

The government declared three days of mourning beginning Wednesday, while in Brussels, flags were lowered to half-staff outside buildings of the European Union.

The cargo train was traveling south from Thessaloniki to Larissa with a crew of two, while the other train, with about 350 passengers, was headed north from Athens to Thessaloniki.

Yiannis Ditsas, head of the Greek rail workers’ union, told Greek television that the two trains barreled toward one another for 12 minutes before colliding. At least three passenger cars derailed and burst into flames.

By Wednesday morning, authorities reported that at least 66 of those injured were still hospitalized, with six of them in intensive care.

Rescue workers continued to search through the crash site, where an overturned blue passenger car remained in an open field. Other cars were flattened.

Before his resignation, Karamanlis said, “It’s a difficult search and rescue operation and we still don’t know the exact number of victims. We will investigate with full seriousness and with full transparency the causes of this tragic incident.”

Greece’s health minister, Thanos Plevris, said many of the passengers on the northbound train were college students and other young people. Greek media reported that many of them had been returning from carnival celebrations in Athens.

Authorities say about 250 passengers who survived the crash unharmed or with minor injuries were transported by bus to Thessaloniki.

Greece has struggled with rail safety in recent years, with the EU saying the country had the highest railway fatality rate per kilometer traveled in the 27-nation bloc between 2018 and 2020.

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

Russian defense companies are showcasing their products at major international arms fairs, Britain’s Defense Ministry said Friday in its daily update about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The companies are promoting the Arena-E active protection system or APS which the ministry said is designed to improve the survivability of armored vehicles.

The APS promotional material at a recent show stated that APS “defeats the threats that are most dangerous for armored vehicles.”

There is no evidence, however, that the system has been installed on Russian vehicles in Ukraine, where it has lost over 5,000 armored vehicles, according to the ministry. That incongruity is likely due to Russian companies’ inability “to manufacture high-tech systems at scale,” the defense ministry said, “a problem which is exacerbated by the effect of international sanctions.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his address Thursday that a ‘brutal Russian missile attack “on Zaporizhzia will face our military and legal response.” He said, “The occupier will inevitably feel our strength.”

Ukrainian authorities said a Russian missile struck an apartment building in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, killing at least three people.

Zelenskyy posted on Telegram that the missile destroyed three floors of the building.
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French President Emmanuel Macron promised $52.9 million (50 million euros) to a new global scheme to reward countries for protecting their forests and biodiversity on Thursday as he called for more concrete action on global climate commitments.

The pledge was announced at the end of the two-day One Forest Summit in Gabon that aimed to assess progress made since last year’s COP27 climate conference and renew targets for the preservation and sustainable management of the world’s forests.

“We understood the need to have cash on the table and concrete actions,” Macron said in a speech on the first full day of a four-nation Africa tour.

The funding from France is part of a joint $106 million (100 million euro) commitment to kickstart a mechanism that aims to reward countries that are scientifically proven to have protected their forests or restored them.

Macron said the scheme would be underpinned by research to improve the understanding of forests’ value by mapping carbon reserves, biodiversity and levels of carbon sequestration in the Amazon, Africa and Asia.

How Central African countries such as Gabon manage their share of the world’s second-largest rainforest is critical. The so-called lungs of Africa store more carbon per hectare than the Amazon, help regulate temperatures, and generate rain for millions in the arid Sahel and distant Ethiopian highlands.

Macron said the new mechanism would address a current issue with carbon credit schemes where countries like Gabon with relatively untouched forests are not compensated as well as deforested countries that are planting new trees.

“It’s a bit absurd,” he said.

Macron earlier visited a rainforest on the outskirts of the Gabonese capital, where he strolled among towering trees and sampled a kola nut. He has said he wants to avoid politics during the Africa tour, which includes his first-time visits as president to Angola, Congo and Republic of Congo.

Closing the summit, Gabonese President Ali Bongo expressed satisfaction with its outcome and the outlook for the next climate conference.

“We have put in place a sound plan that will make COP28 the success we wanted it to be.”
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Local journalists in southern Turkey have been torn between mourning their loved ones and reporting the scope of destruction in their cities.

On the night of the earthquake on February 6, Sinasi Inan, a reporter based in Sanliurfa for the Ihlas News Agency, rushed outside with his wife and children and went to an area with collapsed buildings to report the damage.

After finding a safe place to leave his immediate family — an expansive lot across from his father-in-law’s house — Inan went to his hometown of Adiyaman, where he discovered about 40 of his own relatives among the dead.

“We came to the region without fully experiencing the pain of losing our relatives, and we continue to do our job,” Inan told VOA, noting that the importance of reporting the story is a journalistic reflex.

Kadir Gunes, who is based in Gaziantep for the Demiroren News Agency, described the hardship in the first days of the earthquake as he and his family used their car for shelter like other survivors.

“I produced my stories in the car and slept in the car,” Gunes told VOA. “We usually hear about an incident first and go to the scene. This time, we experienced the incident ourselves.”

Gunes’ wife and 2-year-old son later went to stay with her family.

The 7.8- and 7.6-magnitude earthquakes that jolted Turkey and Syria killed nearly 50,000 people. At least 26 local journalists in 10 Turkish provinces were among the victims.

Survival

As the reporters mourn their personal losses, they also think of the physical and mental impact the earthquake may have on Turkey’s media.

“It will be a long process for Hatay and its local media to recover from this, and it might take three or five years,” said Abdullah Temizyurek, owner of Hatay and Hatay Soz newspapers.” I do not know if those who live with this fear will return. But they must return. This is our homeland.”

Temizyurek noted that four people on his staff lost family members in the earthquake.

Since thousands of people have left Hatay, one of the worst-hit provinces in Turkey, Temizyurek believes local media must report on the aftermath, given that national and international media will eventually leave.

“I think we should continue to talk about Hatay. But everyone is in shock. I think we need to do our job and cover the news as much as possible,” Temizyurek said.

Challenges

According to a 2021 Media Research Association report, local newspapers in Turkey have struggled through an economic crisis, rising printing costs and a decline in ad revenue and subscriptions. The earthquakes provided new challenges to their survival.

Mustafa Gonuleri, owner of Kent Media in Hatay’s Iskenderun district, said he lost all of his video and audio equipment in the earthquake, destroying his business. He now worries about how he will support his family and keep his media outlet running.

“Even after a few months, if [local media outlets] ask for subscription or advertisement support from the shopkeepers, they would kick us out. Your shop is gone, maybe your employees are dead. A local journalist comes … and asks for your support. You would kick them out,” Gonuleri said.

There is no public data on the number of Turkish media outlets impacted by the earthquake. On February 23, Cavit Erkilinc, head of Turkey’s state-run Press Advertising Agency (BIK), announced that 130 local newspapers had been affected.

BIK offered a $42,370 relief package to local newspapers in the damaged provinces. The agency has also exempted the newspapers from having to meet minimum circulation numbers to receive public ad revenues. That exemption remains in effect until January 2024.

The earthquakes also silenced Diyarbakir-based Can Radio and TV for 24 days — the longest interruption Turkey’s first Kurdish-language media outlet experienced in 28 years. Twelve employees are now unemployed.

“There have been short interruptions because of the [government limitations on] Kurdish broadcasts [in the past], but this is the first time we have experienced such a long interruption,” Ahmet Dalgic, editor-in-chief of Can Radio and TV, told VOA.

He said the outlet would have to cease broadcasting if he could not retrieve equipment and archives from the heavily damaged complex where the radio and TV station is located.
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