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Belgian anti-terrorism investigators on Friday were holding one alleged member of an extreme right group suspected of preparing bomb attacks and inciting violence. 

The Belgian probe also found evidence allowing police in Germany, Italy, Croatia and Lithuania to carry out raids that may lead to further arrests.  

The investigation was launched in May and house raids were carried out on Thursday in the North Sea port of Ostend and in Diepenbeek in the east of the country. 

“During one of the house searches in Diepenbeek, large numbers of Nazi memorabilia, including Nazi flags and swastikas, were found,” prosecutors said in a statement Friday. 

In the searches, the statement said, a man and a woman in their early 20s were detained and identified as Daan C. and Kayley W. from the Dutch-speaking region of northern Belgium.  

The male suspect, Daan C., was found at the house with Nazi symbols, and he has been remanded in custody under an arrest warrant pending further investigation. 

Kayley W. was freed after questioning. 

“Both persons are suspected of participating in the activities of a terrorist group,” the statement said, with Daan C. accused of being a leader. 

Prosecutors accuse him of “recruiting people with a view to committing terrorist crimes and preparing to commit terrorist crimes.” 

But a source close to the inquiry told AFP on condition of anonymity that no evidence was found of specific, imminent planned attacks.  

Using encrypted online platforms, group members shared manuals for 3D-printed guns and shared images appearing to show pipe bombs and Molotov cocktails. 

“It also turned out that some members of the online groups had written a manifesto, and there are indications that they had weapons at their disposal,” the federal prosecutor’s office said.
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The number of rail freight cars heading to the ports of Ukraine’s Odesa region continued to rise over the past week thanks to the successful operation of the alternative Black Sea exports corridor, a senior railways official said late Thursday.

Valeriy Tkachov, deputy director of the commercial department at Ukrainian Railways, said on Facebook that over the last week the number of grain cars heading to Odesa ports increased by more than 26% to 5,341 from 4,227.

He said up to 970 cars were unloaded at the ports’ silos every day.

A week earlier the number of cars jumped by around 50%.

In August, Ukraine launched a “humanitarian corridor” for ships bound for African and Asian markets to try to circumvent a de facto blockade in the Black Sea after Russia quit a deal that had guaranteed Kyiv’s seaborne exports during the war.

Later, a senior agricultural official said the route – which runs along Ukraine’s southwest Black Sea coast, into Romanian territorial waters and onward to Turkey – would also be used for grain shipments.

Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said on Thursday 91 vessels had exported 3.3 million tons of agricultural and metal products since the corridor started operating in August.

The UCAB agricultural business association said this month that Ukrainian grain agricultural exports rose by 15% to 4.8 million metric tons in October thanks to the new corridor.

Ukraine’s government expects a grain and oilseeds harvest of 79 million tons in 2023, with a 2023/24 exportable surplus of about 50 million tons. 
…

A sweeping plain dotted with ruined houses stretched into the horizon and toward the blue expanse of the Dnipro River, where a clutch of Ukrainian forces were poised for Russian attacks.

The Dnipro, Europe’s fourth-longest river and a historic trading route, has become a key front since Ukrainian troops pushed Russian forces back over its banks in the south last year.

The river winds the length of the country from north to south, eventually flowing into the Black Sea from the Kherson region, where it separates the two armies.

While Ukraine’s recapture of Kherson city last November was a defeat for the Kremlin, Russian forces on the opposing bank still control swathes of territory and shell towns and villages they retreated from.

“The Russians are throwing everything they have at us: artillery, attack drones, phosphorus,” an army sergeant with the call sign Vozhd, or Leader, told AFP.

His unit was keeping watch on the riverbank southwest of Kherson city, ready to alert artillery units if Russian forces made an incursion across the river.

Wearing a balaclava and carrying a gun, the 38-year-old serviceman said the good weather the region had been enjoying was playing in their favor.

“Rain is the enemy. When the sky is clear, you can see boats arriving much better,” he said.

‘Solid’ Russian defenses

Kyiv launched a major counteroffensive in the south and east in June but the front line has barely moved and the two sides have continually bombarded each other with heavy weaponry.

“We have the advantage on this side,” Vozhd said, standing on a small promontory topped with tufts of dry grass.

This position is higher than the opposite bank sheltering the Russian lines, around 10 kilometers across the water.

This autumn, Ukrainian forces appeared to have established several small bridgeheads on the left bank northeast of the city of Kherson.

Vozhd’s 45-year-old commander, whose call sign is Armyanchik, said his men also sometimes cross to the Dnipro’s left bank.

“The Russians are well prepared. They have solid lines of defense. It won’t be easy but on the other hand, this is our homeland and we know the terrain,” Armyanchik told AFP, conceding his forces lacked armored boats.

Karamba, a mustachioed 35-year-old, participated in operations on the opposite bank.

His work was to clear mines before assault brigades arrive, a task made more difficult by the breach of the dam in June, which sent a torrent of floodwater downstream and dislodged landmines.

“Because of the flooding, there are mines everywhere: inside ruined houses, in thickets and caught in dead branches,” he said.

At another position near the Dnipro, a unit of the 123rd territorial brigade was using a large abandoned building as a mortar position and to hide boats.

“We have to be discreet here,” said one soldier, referring to pro-Russian informers among the local population.

Barrier between two camps

Nearby a 31-year-old gunner with the call sign Vitamin was tasked with firing mortar rounds at coordinates provided by scouts like Vozhd.

“The Russians have had faster boats for two months now,” he said, making adjustments to his mortar.

His main target was a network of small islands scattered across the river, where he said the Russians were “trying to set up positions.”

“I’m here to stop them,” said the gunner, who said he’d sunk six Russian boats with their crews. He said he did not know the number of Ukrainian boats sunk in turn.

“The river is a natural rampart. It makes it more difficult for the enemy to position itself, but also for us to land on the other side,” he said.

Between his legs, a small dog named Zhulka barked. The Ukrainian soldiers rescued her from one of the islands during an operation.

She has since become a kind of “alarm signal,” since she always runs away from approaching drones — a serious hazard on the plains.

“Drones are always flying over our heads, our mortars and tanks. They constantly fire down at you — and that’s on top of the aviation,” Karamba said.

“The Russians have more drones than us,” Vitamin added.

“I’m sure they are watching us right now.”
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Russia, Venezuela and Pakistan are the top three recipients of Chinese development funding in the past two decades, but the crisis-riddled countries may be losing attraction for Beijing.

China is moving to protect its global investments under the Belt and Road Initiative, according to a study released this week by AidData, a research lab at the U.S. university, William and Mary. The research shows that China gave $1.34 trillion dollars in grants and loans for more than 20,000 projects to 165 low-income and middle-income countries between 2000 and 2021.

While the top three recipients received funding for different reasons, AidData senior researcher Ammar Malik told VOA, “In the global chess board of great power competition between the U.S. and China, every country matters.”

Russia

With nearly $170 billion in development loans, Russia received the biggest chunk of Chinese funding over two decades.

Russia tops the list because China sees it as “strategically important” and Chinese funding is “one of the few options available” to it, Yun Sun, director of the China Program at the Washington-based Stimson Center, wrote to VOA.

China invested most heavily in the Russian industry, mining and construction sectors followed by banking and financial services, and communications.

Unlike many low and middle-income countries that rely on Chinese investments and aid for their domestic needs, the bulk of funding to Russia supports industries that export to China.

Although Russia has seen a drop in Chinese development funding over the years, Moscow will keep courting Beijing, said Ali Wyne, senior analyst with Eurasia Group’s Global Macro-Geopolitics practice.

“Russia believes that it can advance its great-power pretensions by deepening its ties to China, which is the only country that might eventually be able to contest the United States for global preeminence,” Wyne told VOA in a written statement.

Moscow’s debt to Beijing totals almost $130 billion, or 7.3% of its GDP. However, the lack of grants to Russia speaks to the strength of the Russian economy and shows that China expects economic gains by investing there, according to AidData.

But Beijing’s deepening economic and strategic ties with Russia come with a cost, Wyne noted.

“Russia’s ongoing aggression against Ukraine has significantly undermined China’s relationships with the United States and the European Union,” he said.

Venezuela

With almost $113 billion in investments from China in the past two decades, Venezuela is the second-largest recipient of Beijing’s credit and aid.

In AidData’s report, the bulk of China’s funding went to multisector projects that do not fall into any specific category due to a lack of information from Beijing, followed by the sector titled “industry, mining and construction.”

Venezuela has the world’s largest volume of proven oil reserves, and the country’s rapid growth created enormous demand for energy, making it attractive for Beijing to invest there, Wyne told VOA.

However, the third-largest chunk of Chinese spending in Venezuela went to budgetary support to save its economy. This reflects a trend seen in many recipients of Chinese funds.

“This rescue lending is intended to keep the whole financial system in these countries afloat so that they can repay the loans that they had taken on in the previous years,” said Malik.

According to AidData, more than half of China’s loans to low and middle-income countries have entered a repayment phase, but many of the borrowers are unable to pay back the debt. This has forced Beijing, the world’s single biggest creditor, to spend less on infrastructure projects under its global Belt and Road Initiative — known as BRI — launched in 2013, and more on rescuing countries in financial distress.

“The collapse of oil prices between mid-2014 and late 2015 as well as the economic mismanagement under President Nicolás Maduro undercut Venezuela’s ability to make loan repayments to China, thereby making Beijing more cautious about its economic dealings with Caracas,” Wyne said.

Since 2016, Caracas has seen a drop in Chinese funding.

Venezuela joined BRI in 2018. Yun Sun told VOA the South American country is not a key BRI target and will not be, for the foreseeable future.

Pakistan

With deep strategic, diplomatic and, lately, defense ties with China, Pakistan is the third-biggest recipient of Beijing’s credit and aid totaling more than $70 billion.

Pakistan’s 3,300-kilometer border with India to the east and the warm waters of the Arabian Sea to the south make this western neighbor of China an attractive choice for investment.

“Pakistan provides that long-term access into the Arabian Sea and through that into the Middle East for China,” said Uzair Younus, director of the Pakistan Initiative at the Washington-based Atlantic Council. “In a world where India and U.S. continue to come closer together, there is basically a default approach that the Chinese will take towards Pakistan.”

In the past two decades, China has invested most heavily in Pakistan’s energy sector, followed by budget support and loans for projects in the transportation and storage sector.

Home to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, or CPEC, which many call the BRI’s “crown jewel,” the country has seen a dramatic rise in Chinese funding since 2014.

The Pakistani government’s data indicates CPEC has so far created nearly 200,000 jobs, built more than 1,400 kilometers of highways and roads, and added 8,000 megawatts of electricity to the national grid. The country’s deep-sea southwestern port of Gwadar, the centerpiece of CPEC, handled 600,000 tons of cargo in the past 18 months, according to officials.

Despite billions in Chinese development funding, Pakistan has struggled economically, barely escaping collapse this year.

Islamabad now owes China more than $67 billion which equals 19.6% of its economy. Experts say Beijing’s heavy budgetary support to Islamabad — almost $21.3 billion in 22 years — is a sign that China does not want Pakistan to fail.

“The country that is basically building that crown jewel [CPEC] going into default or a disorderly default or an economic crisis is not good for the broader reputation of the BRI,” Younus said.

As in Venezuela and other financially distressed recipients, Chinese development funding to Pakistan is drying up as Beijing focuses on keeping the country afloat.

“The attractiveness of Pakistan even in Chinese eyes has definitely taken a hit,” Younus said, pointing to Chinese insurance company Sinosure’s hesitation in providing coverage to new projects in Pakistan.

Future outlook

Malik sees Pakistan as a microcosm of what is happening around the world in countries with Chinese investments, especially since the launch of BRI.

“Our research shows that when China faces headwinds in the form of political instability on the ground or a country running into debt crisis, China generally backs down and reduces its commitments,” Malik said.

China is looking to reduce the risks to its global investments, research shows. That means opting for countries that not only favor Beijing over Washington, but also provide a stable and secure environment for investments.
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Turkey’s media regulator has voted to order the German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle, or DW, to obtain a broadcast license for its Turkish-language website.

The Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTUK) ruled on the move Wednesday in a majority vote, saying the German broadcaster must comply with a Turkish licensing regulation that came into force in 2019.

RTUK previously moved to block DW’s content in 32 languages under its dw.com domain, along with VOA Turkish, over the refusal by both media outlets to obtain a license.

Both international broadcasters said previously they could not comply with the regulation because of censorship concerns.

Since that initial ban in 2022, DW’s Turkish Service has used dwturkce.com to deliver news to audiences inside Turkey.

Tuncay Keser, an RTUK member appointed to the board by the opposition Republican People’s Party, announced that the regulator would give DW three days to apply for a broadcast license.

Failure to comply will result in RTUK’s request that a court block access inside the country to DW’s domain name, Keser said.

RTUK has yet to officially announce the three-day notice for DW on its website.

Erkan Arikan, who heads the DW Turkish language service, has said the broadcaster will continue to deliver news to audiences in Turkey.

“With our existing resources, we will continue to deliver the developments in the world, Europe, Germany and Turkey from different perspectives and with background information to our readers and viewers on different platforms, as always,” DW Turkish cited Arikan as saying.

The broadcaster has a pending case at Turkey’s Constitutional Court that argues that the ban imposed in 2022 “violated rights to freedom of expression, press, a fair trial and an effective remedy.”

Legal tensions

Carla Hagemann, DW’s corporate spokesperson, told VOA the legal requirements for obtaining a broadcast license in Turkey include establishing a company that is “50 percent owned by a Turkish citizen.”

“The responsibility for programs must be transferred to this person,” she said.

But, said Hagemann, that requirement is incompatible with German law, which puts overall responsibility for DW with its director-general. That power, she said, “may not be transferred to an external party.”

The licensing could enable Turkey to censor content, she added.

DW is governed by the Deutsche Welle Act, which defines the broadcaster’s programming, structure and financing.

According to the act, the director-general must manage the broadcaster independently and is “solely responsible for the preparation and planning of programs and for the operating of the corporation as a whole.”

RTUK did not respond to VOA’s email, sent late Thursday, requesting comment.

But in July 2022, when it first imposed bans on DW and VOA, RTUK said that if the outlets had complied, “blocking their websites by the independent judiciary would not have been applied.” 

“RTUK supports pluralism, free press and free reporting by media outlets. However, like every democratic country, Turkey is a state with the rule of law. RTUK, which is a guide to the sector, is in favor of the legal dissemination of news content under certain guarantees,” the regulator added.

Censorship concerns

In 2022, RTUK issued 54 penalties to five independent broadcasters but only four penalties to pro-government channels, according to the European Federation of Journalists.  

Several press freedom advocates in Turkey view the licensing requirement for international broadcasters as a tool for censorship.

“The main purpose of RTUK is to end, prevent and intimidate broadcasts that the [Turkish] government does not like. DW and VOA were among the broadcasts that the government did not like,” Faruk Bildirici, a media ombudsman and former RTUK member, told VOA.

Gurkan Ozturan, coordinator of the Media Freedom Rapid Response at Leipzig-based European Center for Press and Media Freedom, told VOA, “RTUK has long been acting like an apparatus of the government, targeting independent media, which poses a great threat against media pluralism in the country.”

Ozturan added that the demand that Deutsche Welle obtain a license “seems far from being well-intentioned, when we look at the track record of RTUK’s activities in recent years, issuing fines against independent media, making statements that threaten and endanger journalists.”

RTUK’s vote came on the same day the European Commission released its annual report on Turkey’s EU accession process.

The report criticized the state of freedom of expression and press in Turkey and listed the violations this year, including the ban on VOA Turkish’s website in August.

It also noted that Turkish authorities declined to extend the operating license of DW’s office in Turkey.

VOA Turkish contributed to this report. 
…

French President Emmanuel Macron gave opening remarks on Thursday in Paris at an aid conference for Gaza, stressing that “all lives have equal worth.”

Representatives from more than 50 nations, including the U.S. and several Arab states, were in attendance. Israeli officials weren’t invited but were informed of the meeting in advance, Macron’s press office said.

Macron appealed for a humanitarian pause in Israel’s counteroffensive against Hamas, saying that ensuring the safety of civilians is “non-negotiable.”

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, around 1.5 million Palestinians – roughly 70% of Gaza’s population – have been forced to flee their homes because of Israeli air and ground attacks, prompted by the devastating October 7 Hamas assault on southern Israel. The Israeli government says it left 1,400 people dead.

More than 10,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli airstrikes, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry.

The Paris forum hosted diplomats from the West and Middle East, as well as NGOs and U.N. dignitaries, with the goal of quickly mobilizing support for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip who are stuck in the worst humanitarian crisis there in recent memory.

Helping Palestinians access food, water, healthcare, fuel and electricity is a top priority, Macron and other leaders said.

The French president also argued the need for a two-state solution to lasting peace.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh gave remarks demanding an end to the war, which he characterized as a war not against Hamas but “a war against the whole Palestinian people.”

“We must take care of the wounded, provide electricity, water, medicines,” he continued.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said that while Israel had allowed some aid shipments into Gaza through the Rafah border crossing, they weren’t nearly enough.

Shoukry called on “the entire international community, and donor countries in particular, to continue supporting the Palestinian people in Gaza.”

Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides detailed his plan to open a path by sea “to provide continued rapid, safe and unhindered flow of humanitarian aid in a pragmatic and effective manner.”

Thursday’s talks also saw European nations pledge financial support for the people of Gaza.

Macron said at the conference that France will give 80 million euros, or $85.7 million, in humanitarian support for Gazan civilians in addition to $21.4 million it had previously committed this year.

Macron’s announcement comes two days after Germany said it would donate 20 million euros on top of releasing 71 million euros, or $76.1 million, it had already set aside for the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, or UNRWA.

Denmark also promised to provide $10.7 million to Gazan civilians through U.N. humanitarian groups and the International Red Cross.

At a press conference after the conference, activists and philanthropic groups called for an immediate cease-fire, saying that humanitarian pauses wouldn’t allow enough time to address the ravages of war.

Agnès Callamard, the secretary general of human rights group Amnesty International, said that Israel’s military operations in Gaza constitute “a litany of violations of international law … not seen since World War II.”

UNRWA Commissioner-General Phillippe Lazzarini on Thursday sharply condemned how Israel has handled the war, saying, “Thousands of children killed cannot be ‘collateral damage.’”

Martin Griffiths, the under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs at the U.N., said that nowhere in Gaza is there access to “adequate shelter, food, water, sanitation and health.”

Some information for this report was provided by the Associated Press.
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Spanish police say that veteran right-wing politician Alejandro Vidal-Quadras, has been taken to the hospital after being shot in the face in Madrid.

Alejo Vidal-Quadras, 78, a member of Spain’s conservative popular party, and was its regional leader in Catalonia, was shot in the wealthy Salamanca area of central Madrid at about 1.30 p.m. local time.

Vidal-Quadras was conscious when he was taken to the hospital.

Police have identified two men in connection with the shooting, who got away on a black motorcycle. The gunman, wearing a helmet, left the motorcycle to carry out the shooting.

No arrests were made following the incident.

Some information in this report was taken from the Associated Press and Reuters.
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Britain’s interior minister on Thursday accused the country’s largest police force of being more lenient toward pro-Palestinian demonstrators than other groups, deepening a political feud sparked by the Israel-Hamas war. 

In a highly unusual attack on the police, Home Secretary Suella Braverman said London’s Metropolitan Police force was ignoring lawbreaking by “pro-Palestinian mobs.” She described demonstrators calling for a cease-fire in Gaza as “hate marchers.” 

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was under growing pressure to fire Braverman, a divisive figure popular with the authoritarian wing of the governing Conservative Party. Sunak’s spokesperson, Max Blain, said that Braverman’s article had not been approved by the prime minister’s office before publication, but that Sunak still had full confidence in the home secretary. 

Pro-Palestinian protests have been held in London and other British cities every weekend since the war began more than a month ago. The government has criticized organizers for planning a march on Saturday because it is Armistice Day, the anniversary of the end of World War I, when many in Britain pause to remember victims of war.

Sunak has criticized planned protests on Remembrance weekend as “provocative and disrespectful.” But after summoning police chief Mark Rowley for talks on Wednesday, Sunak said the government backed “the right to peacefully protest. And the test of that freedom is whether our commitment to it can survive the discomfort and frustration of those who seek to use it, even if we disagree with them.” 

That appeared to end the dispute, but Braverman escalated it dramatically with an article in the Times of London newspaper. She accused the police of acting more leniently toward pro-Palestinian demonstrators and Black Lives Matter supporters than to right-wing protesters or soccer hooligans. 

“There is a perception that senior police officers play favorites when it comes to protesters,” Braverman said, and called demonstrations calling for a cease-fire in Gaza “an assertion of primacy by certain groups,” particularly Islamic extremists “of the kind we are more used to seeing in Northern Ireland,” an apparent reference to demonstrations by Irish republican groups. 

More than 3,600 people died in 30 years of violence involving Irish republicans, British loyalists and U.K security forces in Northern Ireland. Many politicians there called Braverman’s comparison insensitive and inaccurate. 

Colum Eastwood, leader of the Irish nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party, said Braverman showed “ignorance of the conditions faced by the civilian population in Gaza, ignorance of the role of the Met police, ignorance of the complex history and traditions of marching and protest in Northern Ireland.” 

“She has managed to offend just about everyone — no mean feat in a divided society,” he said. 

Opposition politicians said Sunak’s unwillingness to fire Braverman showed weakness on the prime minister’s part. 

“He must know that this isn’t the way that a home secretary should behave,” said opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer. “He must know in himself that the role of responsible government is to reduce tension and to support police in the difficult decisions they have to make.” 

Hundreds of thousands of people have taken part in the Saturday demonstrations since the war began, sparked by Hamas’ deadly incursion into Israel on October 7. The protests are organized by left-wing groups and Muslim organizations. There also have been large rallies supporting Israel and demanding Hamas free the hostages it seized in its October 7 attack. 

Police say there have been almost 200 arrests across London related to the conflict, including 98 for suspected antisemitic offenses and 21 for alleged anti-Muslim offenses. 

Protests can be banned in Britain only if there is a risk of serious disorder. Police said that threshold has not been met, although they are worried that “breakaway groups intent on fueling disorder” may show up, including far-right activists. 

The home secretary is responsible for law and order and immigration policy, including the government’s stalled plan to send asylum-seekers who arrive in Britain in boats on a one-way trip to Rwanda. 

Countries around the world have grappled with how to handle the strong emotions stirred by the Middle East conflict. France’s interior minister last month issued an order to local authorities nationwide to ban pro-Palestinian protests, citing risks to public order. France’s highest administrative authority overturned the blanket ban a week later and said decisions should be made locally, based on risks to public order. 

Since then, France has seen several pro-Palestinian protests, some authorized and peaceful, some banned and quickly dispersed by police. 
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Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba Thursday rejected any calls for talks with Russia amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“Those who argue that Ukraine should negotiate with Russia now are either uninformed or misled, or they side with Russia and want Putin to take a pause before an even larger aggression,” Kuleba posted on X.

Kuleba said Ukraine “should not and will not fall into this trap.”

The Kremlin said Wednesday that it would engage in talks.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his side will not participate in negotiations until Russia has withdrawn all of its troops from areas it occupies in Ukraine.

Kuleba said Thursday that Ukraine and Russia held 200 rounds of talks between 2014 and 2022, which included 20 cease-fire agreements, and that none of those actions prevented Russia from launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year.

Some information for this story came from Agence France-Presse.
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The sound of children’s footsteps echoed along a school hallway in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson as pupils gathered to board a coach marked “Evacuation.”

Nadiya Kondratkova stood surrounded by suitcases, her crimson lips trembling and her eyes filled with tears. This was the first time she had parted from her daughters.

“They have to get some rest far away from the explosions and sirens,” Nadiya said, explaining her decision to send them away. 

“They’re exhausted,” she told AFP. “They can’t sleep anymore and they scream at night.”

The city has suffered daily attacks since it was recaptured by Ukrainian forces last November, after eight months under Russian occupation.

It lies on the Ukrainian-controlled west bank of the Dnipro River, the de-facto front line between the two warring sides.

But as Ukrainian troops launch attacks east of the river and Russian strikes intensify, parents now face a daunting choice: face the bombs as a family or get at least their children to safety.

Amid the growing danger, local officials set up a program to temporarily evacuate children to a holiday camp nestled in the idyllic mountains of western Ukraine.

“Our task is to get the children to a place of safety for a few months,” said Kherson official Anton Yefanov, standing next to a bus preparing to evacuate 65 children on top of the more than 280 already taken to safety.

“We’ve been feeling it’s getting more dangerous because there is more and more shelling,” he said.

Thuds of explosions sounded in the distance, while families of the evacuees chatted, alternating between laughter and tears.

“I don’t know when I’ll see them again,” Kondratkova said.

“I’m afraid to be in Kherson but I’m used to that. I lived through the occupation.”

‘Forget the war’

Ukraine says over 500 children have been killed since Russia invaded in February last year, a grim milestone in the more than 20-month conflict.

Yet not all families in Kherson are willing to separate, despite the calls to evacuate.

Volodymyr and Maryna Pсhelnyk, both in their 40s, said they preferred to keep their children with them, “even if it is dangerous”.

Their 11-year-old daughter Dariya darted around dressed as a witch for Halloween outside their flower stall in the city’s central market, while Volodymyr applied red makeup around the eyes of her 6-year-old sister, Anna.

“I am death, I hide in the shadows!” Dariya chanted, wrapped in a black cape.

“We celebrate Halloween to forget the war,” Volodymyr said, smiling. “They miss their friends. Many have gone abroad and to other cities.”

The girls, draped a sheet printed with cobwebs and bats, ran around bumping into elderly neighbors out shopping. 

“It’s difficult to be a parent at the moment. It’s difficult to explain to a child what’s happening without traumatizing them. We tell them to be more careful, to listen out for the sirens.”

He and his wife try to take their children to playgrounds “before the sirens,” he said, “so that they don’t forget there is warmth, cheeriness, happiness, and not just tragedy and death.”

‘Tragedy’

Children are a rare sight in Kherson. A few fly kites in play areas protected by sandbags or go out with their parents after dark when there are fewer air raids.

Gennadiy Grytskov, 43, decided to flee his Kherson suburb last month, after a missile hit his sister’s house, killing her 6-year-old son and wounding her 13-year-old son.

He now lives on the site of a former boarding school in Mykolaiv, some 70 kilometers to the northwest.

“It was a tragedy. When we fled, we just took my documents and the children’s clothes, that’s all,” he said, sitting on a makeshift bed.

The smell of stewed cabbage from a canteen pervaded the corridors of the building, now a temporary reception point for displaced people.

He shares a classroom converted into a bedroom with his five children, including a son who has a disability, and his 62-year-old mother, Lyubov.

Sitting close to her son, she showed a picture of her dead grandson on her phone.

“We were supposed to celebrate my son’s birthday that day. My grandson had told me he wanted to go to school, that he wanted to learn to write. He never got to go,” she said, in tears. 

Despite all this, she hopes to go back home one day.

“My home is my home,” she said, wiping away a tear.
…

Some 80 countries and international organizations meet in Paris on Thursday to coordinate aid and assess how to help the wounded in the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, although expectations for concrete results are low without some pause in fighting.

France offered support for Israel after a deadly Oct. 7 attack by Hamas Islamists, yet Israel’s retaliatory bombardment has raised concerns as civilian casualties have soared. Thousands have been killed, wounded and displaced in Gaza.

“It’s not a secret for anybody that access is difficult today in Gaza for basic necessities, medicines, water, etc… So the object is really to work with all the participants and also with Israel … to allow improved access,” a French presidential official told reporters ahead of the conference.

The Palestinian Authority’s prime minister will be present, but Israel was not invited. French officials said Israel was being kept informed of developments.

The conference brings together regional stakeholders such as Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf Arab countries as well as Western powers and G20 members except for Russia. International institutions and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) operating in Gaza, such as Doctors Without Borders, are also due to attend.

However, few heads of state, government or foreign ministers will attend, and NGOs have been critical that there is not more pressure at the conference for a cease-fire.

“It will be an exercise in repeating the national positions, saying what each state has given and will give, that civilians have to be protected and international humanitarian law kept to,” said one European diplomat.

French officials hope it will lay the groundwork for a swift international response when there is an actual pause in the fighting.

There will be some effort to mobilize financial resources with several sectors identified for emergency support based on U.N. assessments of the $1.1 billion of immediate needs and the opening of strictly humanitarian crossing points into Gaza.

France is due to announce an increase in its commitments.

Reestablishing the supply of water, fuel and electricity would be under discussion, while ensuring accountability processes to ensure aid was not diverted to Hamas.

There will be a discussion to set up a maritime corridor to use sea lanes to ship humanitarian aid into Gaza and see how ships could be used to help evacuate the wounded.

Talks will also assess the prospect for establishing field hospitals, although diplomats have said Egypt is reluctant to host a multitude of hospitals on its territory while setting them up in Gaza seems difficult without a humanitarian pause or cease-fire.

Without buy-in from Israel or Hamas for a pause there is little prospect of things moving quickly.

“We expect that the conference on humanitarian issues in Gaza will certainly raise the issue of the 241 Israeli hostages, who are in Gaza, including babies, children, women and the elderly,” an Israeli official told Reuters.

“This is a first-rate humanitarian issue and the international community has to discuss this topic as part of a humanitarian discussion on Gaza.”

The French presidency official said the issue would be on the table.
…

Transsexual people can be godparents at Roman Catholic baptisms, witnesses at religious weddings and receive baptism themselves, the Vatican’s doctrinal office said on Wednesday, responding to questions from a bishop. 

The department, known as the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith, was vague, however, in response to a question about whether a same-sex couple could have a church baptism for an adopted child or one obtained through a surrogate mother. 

Bishop Jose Negri of Santo Amaro, Brazil, sent the doctrinal office six questions in July regarding LGBTQ people and their participation in the sacraments of baptism and matrimony. 

The three pages of questions and answers were signed by the department’s head, Argentine Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernandez, and approved by Pope Francis on October 31. They were posted in Italian on the department’s website Wednesday. 

Francis, 86, has tried to make the church more welcoming to the LGBTQ community without changing church teachings, including one saying that same-sex attraction is not sinful but same-sex acts are. 

In response to a question of whether transsexual people can be baptized, the doctrinal office said they could with some conditions and as long as there is “no risk of causing a public scandal or disorientation among the faithful.” 

It said a transsexual people could be godparents at a baptism at the discretion of the local priest, as well as a witness at a church wedding, but the local priest should exercise “pastoral prudence” in his decision. 

A person in a same-sex relationship could also be a witness at a Catholic wedding, the office said, citing current church canonical legislation that contained no prohibition against it. 

The response was less clear regarding persons in same-sex relationships and their role in baptism, which is the initiation into the church for infants, children or adults. 

The Brazilian bishop sought guidance on whether a same-sex couple who had adopted a child or obtained it from a surrogate mother could have that child baptized in a Catholic ceremony. 

The response said that for the child of a same-sex couple to be baptized, there had to be “a well-founded hope that it would be educated in the Catholic religion.” 

There was a similarly nuanced response to a question about whether a person in a same-sex relationship could be a godparent at a church baptism. It said the person had to “lead a life that conforms to the faith.” 
…

On Wednesday, the European Commission recommended opening European Union membership negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova. The news was welcome in Ukraine, which remains at war with Russia but wants to bind its future with the EU. VOA’s Myroslava Gongadze reports. Camera: Eugene Shynkar.
…

The husband of Alsu Kurmasheva, a journalist jailed in Russia on accusations that she failed to register as a foreign agent, is calling on the U.S. government to declare her “wrongfully detained.”

Kurmasheva, an American-Russian dual citizen, was detained on October 18. Authorities ordered her held until at least December 5.

The editor works with the Tatar-Bashkir service for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, or RFE/RL. She and her media outlet deny the charges against her.   

In his first public comments since Kurmasheva’s detention, her husband, Pavel Butorin, is urging the United States to classify the journalist as “wrongfully detained,” which would open additional government resources to help secure her release.

“We’re already very grateful for the support that we are receiving,” Butorin told VOA’s sister outlet RFE/RL. “This is a very important designation, the kind that comes from the United States government and from the State Department.”

Butorin, like Kurmasheva, works from the RFE/RL offices in Prague. Butorin heads Current Time TV, a Russian-language TV and digital network led by RFE/RL in partnership with VOA. 

“There is nothing we want to happen more than to get Alsu back. My children need her. I need my wife back,” Butorin said.

Kurmasheva has had no contact with her family since her arrest. 

The journalist had traveled to Russia in May for a family emergency. When she tried to return to Prague in June, her passports were confiscated. She was waiting for those documents to be returned when authorities detained her on October 18. 

Now, Kurmasheva is facing five years in prison for allegedly violating Russia’s “foreign agent” law.

Moscow says its foreign agent law is a response to the U.S. Foreign Agent Registration Act, but analysts say that the Kremlin uses the designation to target critics. 

Russia designated the U.S. Congress-funded RFE/RL a foreign agent in 2020.

The independent network refused to comply with the requirement to register as a foreign agent, saying it would be an invasion of its editorial processes and would limit the ability of the network to work.

U.S. officials and the U.N. Human Rights Office, along with media freedom and human rights groups, have called on Moscow to release Kurmasheva. 

“This appears to be another case of the Russian government harassing U.S. citizens,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in October.

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

One of two journalists detained this year

Kurmasheva is the second American journalist jailed in Russia this year. 

In March, Russian authorities detained American Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich on espionage charges that he, his employer and the U.S. government deny. 

Declared wrongfully detained by the U.S. government, Gershkovich, 32, is in pre-trial detention until at least November 30. The detention period has been twice extended and appeals for bail denied.

“It’s really hard to believe that our colleague, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, has now been wrongfully detained for more than six months,” Almar Latour, chief executive of Dow Jones and publisher of The Wall Street Journal, said Tuesday at an Atlantic Council event about threats facing foreign correspondents.

“In 2023, journalism is under attack. Make no mistake about it,” Latour said. 

Paul Beckett, an assistant editor at the Journal who is focused on securing Gershkovich’s release, said the reporter is “in pretty decent shape” considering the circumstances. He added that the letters of support Gershkovich receives mean “a massive amount.”

The jailings of Gershkovich and Kurmasheva underscore global threats facing press freedom.  

At the end of 2022, a record high of 363 reporters were jailed around the world, according to research by the Committee to Protect Journalists. Of those, 19 were detained in Russia.

“The environment for journalists everywhere has deteriorated dramatically in recent years, and that’s in part because we’re seeing a global decline in democracy,” CPJ president Jodie Ginsberg said at the Atlantic Council. 
…

France has denounced an action taken by an Iranian court that sentenced a French national to five years in prison.

Louis Arnaud, a banking consultant who has been held in Iran’s Evin prison for over a year, was tried on national security charges.

The charges handed down by a Revolutionary Court include propaganda against and seeking to harm the security of the Islamic republic, the family said in a statement.

His family called the charges “baseless” and said that Arnaud, who they described as a “passionate traveler,” didn’t get involved with political movements while in Iran. The family added that Arnaud has appealed the sentence.

The French foreign ministry immediately condemned the ruling, calling the sentence “unacceptable” and saying that “there is no evidence” to support the ruling as Arnaud has no access to a lawyer.

“We call for his immediate release, as well as that of all French citizens arbitrarily detained in Iran,” the ministry said in a statement.

Iran has not confirmed the sentencing, and Iranian media has not reported on the court ruling.

Three other French citizens are currently held by Iran: teacher Cecile Kohler and her partner, Jacques Paris, and a man identified only by his first name, Olivier. France has described Iran’s keeping of French prisoners as state hostage taking.

Iran released French prisoners Bernard Phelan, who also is an Irish citizen, and Benjamin Briere in May after their health worsened following a hunger strike. French-Iranian academic Fariba Adelkhah was also able to return to France in October after he was held for four and a half years.

Iran has set free several other prisoners, including five Americans in a deal that released billions of dollars of Iranian funds that had been frozen in a South Korean account.

Some information in this report was taken from Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
…

Farmers in the U.S. are closely connected to developments in Ukraine and are intently watching for clues about how the war is affecting not only farmers abroad, but also their own operations at home. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh has more from Decatur, Illinois.
…

The European Commission said Wednesday it recommended member states open membership talks with Ukraine once the country addresses several outstanding reform issues.

The EU granted Ukraine candidate status last year, four months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

EU leaders are expected to decide during a meeting in mid-December whether to accept the European Commission’s recommendation.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Wednesday that Ukraine “belongs to our European family.”

“Today’s decision is a clear recognition of Ukraine’s relentless reform efforts and a strong political will despite the tragic circumstances,” Borrell said.  “It acknowledges the strong resilience and resolve of the Ukrainian society.”

The commission said the membership talks should be launched once Ukraine resolves several remaining issues regarding fighting corruption, adopting a lobbying law that meets EU standards and strengthening national minority safeguards.

The EU’s executive arm also recommended opening membership talks with Ukraine’s neighbor, Moldova, and to extend candidate status to Georgia.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday he welcomed what he called a “strong statement by G7 foreign ministers reiterating the unwavering support for Ukraine even amid other global developments.”

Japan holds the rotating presidency of the Group of Seven leading industrial nations, and G7 foreign ministers said in a joint statement Wednesday that their support for Ukraine in its battle against the Russian invasion “will never waver,” following meetings in Tokyo.

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

In an olive grove on the outskirts of Athens, grower Konstantinos Markou pushes aside the shoots of new growth to reveal the stump of a tree — a roughly 150-year-old specimen, he said, that was among 15 cut down on his neighbor’s land by thieves eager to turn it into money.

Surging olive oil prices, driven in part by two years of drought in Spain, has meant opportunity for criminals across the Mediterranean. Warehouse break-ins, dilution of premium oil with inferior product, and falsification of shipping data are on the rise in olive-growing heartlands of Greece, Spain and Italy. And perhaps worst of all: Gangs using chainsaws to steal heavily laden branches and even entire trees from unguarded groves.

“The olive robbers can sometimes produce more oil than the owners themselves – seriously,” Markou said, before heading off to patrol his own grove at nightfall.

The crimes mean fewer olives for growers already contending with high production costs and climate change that has brought warmer winters, major flooding and more intense forest fires. In Italy’s southern Puglia region, growers are pleading with police to form an agriculture division.

Greek farmers want to bring back a rural police division that was phased out in 2010. In Spain, a company has developed tracking devices that look like olives to try and catch thieves.

The olive groves outside Athens are part of a tradition that stretches back to antiquity, on plains that now surround the city’s international airport. Some trees are centuries old.

Most of the thefts are branches. When an entire tree is cut down, the thieves typically cut it up and load the pieces into a pickup truck, selling the wood to lumber yards or firewood vendors and taking the olives to an oil mill.

“The (robbers) look for heavily loaded branches and they cut them,” said Neilos Papachristou, who runs an olive mill and nearby grove in a fourth-generation family business. “So, not only do they steal our olives, but they cause the tree serious harm. It takes 4-5 years for it to return to normal.”

The thefts are driving some growers to harvest early, which means accepting lower yields to avoid long-term damage to their trees. That includes Christos Bekas, who was among the farmers at Papachristou’s mill who were dumping their crop into stainless steel loading bins, untying sacks and tipping over tall wicker baskets from the back of their pickup trucks.

Bekas, who owns 5,000 olive trees, suffered repeated raids by thieves before deciding to take an early harvest. That has required more than 2 1/2 times as much olives by weight to produce a kilogram of oil as last year, he said.

“And all this after we’ve been spending nights guarding our fields,” he said. “The situation is appalling.”

After decades of growth, the global olive oil market has been disrupted by a nearly two-year drought in Spain, which typically accounts for about 40% of world supply. It’s expected to shrink global production to 2.5 million metric tons this crop year, down from 3.4 million a year earlier.

Benchmark prices in Spain, Greece and Italy for extra virgin oil reached 9 euros ($4.35 per pound) in September, more than tripling from their level in 2019.

That’s translated to higher prices for consumers.

In Greece, a 1-liter bottle of extra virgin oil jumped from $8 to $9 last year to as much as $15 this year.

Spanish police said in October they had retrieved 91 tons of stolen olives in recent weeks.

In February, six people were arrested in southern Greece for the theft of 8 tons of olive oil in a series of warehouse break-ins over several weeks.

Farmers around Italy’s southwestern port city of Bari say thieves have become increasingly brazen, snatching tractors and expensive equipment along with olives.

The regional agricultural association issued a plea for police assistance following reports that 100 olive trees were destroyed or seriously damaged in a single incident last month. Gennaro Sicolo, the association’s leader, called the economic damage “enormous” and said “farmers must be protected.”

“This is a felony,” Markou, the Greece grower, said of the tree-cutting. “You kill your own history here.”

 
…

When figures in the EU talk about the new members that might join the union by 2030, there is no mention of Turkey. It is a glaring omission noticed by Ankara.

As when the European Union published its annual reports on candidate countries’ progress towards EU norms on Wednesday, all eyes will be on Ukraine and Moldova.

Turkey, a formal candidate for membership since 1999, will barely be discussed – but it wasn’t always the case.

After EU leaders approved the start of accession talks with Turkey in 2004, the then British premier Tony Blair hailed it as a historic event that showed there was no clash of civilizations.

But European leaders at the time found themselves stuck in a tussle with Ankara over the divided island of Cyprus, a crisis that proved to be only a foretaste of the turbulent relationship.

Today, ties are more transactional than a path toward partnership, even if neither side will openly admit this. Experts nevertheless still point to limited areas in which the relationship can improve.

For many EU member states, the long-stalled accession talks are dead in all but name. In September, Austria – long opposed to Turkey’s membership – even called for the process to end.

EU officials privately say this would be more honest, but no one wants to make the first move.

After Turkey’s elections in May, EU leaders revived hopes for improvement. They ordered the EU’s executive arm and its foreign policy chief to prepare a report on how to develop the relationship.

The report is due before December’s next summit gathering of EU leaders, but experts and EU officials warn against expecting any real improvement in ties.

“I’m not expecting any meaningful revitalization of the relationship because there are limited areas where progress can really be made,” said Senem Aydin-Duzgit, an international relations professor at Istanbul’s Sabanci University.

‘Turkey fatigue’

There is “Turkish fatigue” in Europe, as Austria’s comments show, said the European Parliament’s Turkey rapporteur, Nacho Sanchez Amor.

“We are tired of maintaining the accession process alive when apparently there is no real political will from the other side to advance on democratic standards,” the MEP said.

The EU accuses Turkey of backsliding on democracy and the rule of law, particularly after the failed 2016 coup and the subsequent crackdown on its perceived supporters and government opponents.

The relationship’s transactional nature deepened after the two sides agreed a deal in 2016 under which the EU threw billions of euros at Ankara to stop migrants coming to Europe after the 2015 refugee crisis.

“Transactional is not a derogatory term,” Amor said. “Don’t mix the accession process, which has its own rules based on values and principles, with the rest of the relationship.”

The report due later this year will likely recommend updating the customs union, for which Turkey’s trade minister was in Brussels in October to drum up support.

“If the customs union talks could start with this current government, I don’t think they would lead anywhere,” Aydin-Duzgit said, since Ankara would have to make unappealing reforms.

But if Brussels is sending mixed messages about the relationship’s future, so is Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

He warned in September that Turkey could “part ways with the EU if necessary,” just two months after he said that if Sweden wanted Ankara’s green light to join NATO, the EU should “pave the way to Turkey’s membership.”

Turkey’s ambassador to the EU reaffirmed Turkey’s commitment to accession, but acknowledged it was not going to be easy.

“The Turkish government is committed to EU membership,” said Faruk Kaymakci. “What we expect is equal treatment among candidate countries.”

Calls for clarity

Is it time for Brussels to be honest about Turkey’s accession?

Many observers, and Turks, seek clarity, while others argue the nail was firmly in the coffin when then French president Nicolas Sarkozy and former German chancellor Angela Merkel together came out against Turkey’s membership in 2009.

And, in a set-back for Turkey, its biggest defender, Britain, left the EU.

There is, however, pressure from the United States not to end accession negotiations, an EU official said, with Washington desperate to keep Turkey out of Russia’s arms and closer to the West amid Moscow’s attack on Ukraine.

Brussels now faces a bigger dilemma about Ukraine’s future membership, and the challenges and opportunities its accession would bring.

One that some say blows any chance of Turkey’s membership.

“Ukraine’s membership would change the EU and it could not take on another member like Turkey,” the official told AFP.
…

On Tuesday, Polish truckers blocked roads to three border crossings with Ukraine for the second day in a row. The truckers say their Ukrainian counterparts have an unfair advantage due to regulations passed during Russia’s war on Ukraine. Lesia Bakalets reports from the Korcheva-Krakovets border crossing. Camera: Daniil Batushchak.
…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed Tuesday that his country would become a member of the European Union. His remarks came a day before a report is scheduled to be published Wednesday on the progress of the country’s candidacy to the EU.

The progress of candidate countries Moldova and Georgia will also be addressed in the report by the European Commission.

The EU granted Ukraine candidate status in June 2022 and outlined several conditions for admittance, including addressing widespread corruption and judicial reforms in the country.

Zelenskyy pointed to the strides Ukraine has made and acknowledged that more work was needed for the country to “adapt to EU standards.”

Further diplomacy took place between European nations and Ukraine, as the first of five F-16 fighter jets was sent by the Netherlands to an air base in Romania, where the planes will be used in training for Ukrainian and Romanian pilots, according to the Dutch Defense Ministry.

The move to transfer the planes to Ukraine was approved by the United States in August in an effort to bolster the Ukrainian war effort. These planes, however, “will only fly in NATO air space,” the ministry said in a statement.

The U.S.-based manufacturer of the warplanes, Lockheed Martin, will be responsible for maintaining the aircraft and will also provide the training.

“I am grateful to the Netherlands and Prime Minister Mark Rutte for leading the way in supporting Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said Tuesday on social media.

The Ukrainian president has turned to his allies to provide additional military materials and has recently asked for long-range missiles and fighter jets to break an impasse on the front line.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday it thwarted attacks by Ukrainian drones over the Black Sea and the Crimean Peninsula.

Russian air defenses destroyed nine of the drones, while eight others were intercepted using electronic means, the ministry said.

Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Russia-installed governor of Sevastopol, said Tuesday on Telegram that falling debris from a downed drone injured one person.

Zelenskyy said Monday in his nightly video address that it was “utterly irresponsible” to discuss holding elections in Ukraine during a time of war. He called for unity to avoid pointless political discussions.

“We need to recognize that this is a time for defense, a time for battle, upon which the fate of the state and its people depend,” he said. “I believe that elections are not appropriate at this time.”

Zelenskyy said it was crucial to focus on the military challenges Ukraine is facing as it tries to repel Russian forces occupying nearly one-fifth of its territory more than 20 months after launching a full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Elections are banned under martial law now in force in Ukraine, but Zelenskyy had been considering whether to invoke special provisions to stage them, including a change in the law and foreign assistance to help pay for the process.

He has said he would like to run for a second term if a vote took place.  

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said over the weekend that Zelenskyy was weighing the pros and cons of a wartime poll.

There have been some calls from abroad, including from Republican U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, for an election to proceed as evidence of reforms of Ukraine’s democratic institutions.

Ukraine is hoping to receive a “positive” European Union appraisal of its progress toward eventual EU membership, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Olha Stefanishyna told Reuters on Monday.

Stefanishyna said Kyiv has implemented all the reforms required of it. It is expected that the report coming out Wednesday will signal the beginning of talks on Ukraine’s accession into the EU, starting in December.

“I would say that the assessment would definitely be positive, because we have been in permanent contact with the European Commission, discussing the steps and negotiating the steps we managed to implement,” Stefanishyna said.

EU membership talks take years, as candidates must meet extensive legal and economic criteria before joining. The EU, which now has 27 member states, is also unwilling to take in a country that is at war.

In Poland, an EU country, Polish truckers blocked roads Monday to three border crossings with Ukraine, protesting what they see as government inaction over a loss of business to foreign competitors since Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Local authorities said Polish truckers do not like that Ukrainian transport companies are exempt from seeking permits to cross the Polish border since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The truckers’ demands include reimposing restrictions on the number of Ukraine-registered trucks entering Poland and a ban on transport companies with capital from outside the European Union, among others.

“The blocking of the roads to the border crossings between Poland and Ukraine … is a painful stab in the back of Ukraine, which is suffering Russian aggression,” Ukraine’s ambassador in Warsaw, Vasyl Zvarych, wrote on X.

Ukraine’s commander in chief said Monday that his assistant, a major in rank, was killed in an explosion when he opened a booby-trapped birthday present that exploded.

“My assistant and close friend, Major Hennady Chastyakov, was killed in tragic circumstances on his birthday in a family setting,” General Valery Zaluzhnyi wrote on Telegram. “An unknown explosive device went off in one of his presents.”

The Ukrainska Pravda online news outlet said a security source was told by Chastyakov’s wife that the gift was a bottle of liquor in the form of a grenade that he had brought home. It exploded when he opened it.

Chastyakov’s 13-year-old son suffered serious injuries from the explosion.

Ukraine launched a criminal investigation Monday into military officers who organized a troop-honoring ceremony that was hit by a Russian missile, killing 19 soldiers in one of the deadliest single attacks reported by Ukrainian forces.

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

As political rhetoric over immigration heats up ahead of next year’s European elections, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz outlined plans Tuesday to toughen migration laws and deport more failed asylum-seekers in a sharp reversal of policies under his predecessor Angela Merkel.

In the first nine months of this year, 230,000 people claimed asylum in Germany, more than the total for 2022. With migrant shelters filling up, regional authorities have complained that the costs are unsustainable.

Migrant deal

Scholz said recently that too many migrants were coming to Germany. After hosting the country’s 16 state governors in Berlin on Monday evening for a meeting lasting several hours, he emerged just before 3 a.m. Tuesday with a deal he claimed would cut migration.

“I believe this is a historic moment as we sit here,” Scholz told reporters. “In light of an unquestionably huge challenge, with very large numbers of migrants and irregular migration, all the levels of the state have managed to cooperate closely, which is necessary. People expect this of us.”

Toughened laws

The agreement will see the federal government pay states and municipalities $8,000 per refugee from next year, instead of the current annual fixed lump sum payment of just under $4 billion. Scholz said this would allow federal payments to rise and fall according to demand.

Benefits for asylum-seekers will be cut, including the doubling of the time migrants must wait to receive financial support. The chancellor also promised to speed up asylum decisions and make it easier to deport those who are refused refugee status.

Temporary checks on the Polish, Czech and Swiss borders will remain, while the government has pledged tougher sentences for human smuggling.

It’s a turnaround from the policies of Scholz’s predecessor. Under Merkel’s chancellorship in 2015, Germany opened its borders to more than 1 million refugees.

The country also has taken in more than 1 million Ukrainian refugees who have been given temporary protection following Russia’s February 2022 invasion.

Election pressure

Chancellor Scholz has an eye on upcoming European elections, scheduled for June next year, says analyst Camino Mortera-Martinez of the Centre for European Reform in Brussels.

“I think the timing of all this makes a lot of sense from a political point of view, because we’ve seen that there has been a string of regional elections in Germany and in other parts of Europe, and the mainstream or center-right parties are getting the message that they need to be — or look — tougher on migration, in order to get the votes that are now going to more radical alternatives, like Alternative for Germany.”

The Alternative for Germany party is currently polling second, ahead of Scholz’s Social Democrats.

Political rhetoric

Judith Wiebke of the Berlin-based migrant support group Pro Asyl said Scholz’s policies are driven by false political rhetoric.

“There are asylum-seekers in Germany who are obliged to be deported, but there are significantly fewer of them than is often portrayed in the public discussion. And they often have very good reasons why they can ultimately stay in Germany — for example family, humanitarian or medical reasons. You also have to ask, does it really make sense for us to deport people who are in training or work, for example?”

Far-right parties are stoking fears of an influx of refugees from the Middle East following the Israel-Hamas conflict, Mortera-Matinez added.

“I think it is very dangerous to get into this idea that there is going to be a massive wave of refugees,” she said. “This is the kind of discourse that benefits populists and the far-right.”

Italy-Albania deal

Meanwhile, Italy, which receives hundreds of thousands of migrants every year, signed a deal Tuesday to build asylum processing centers in Albania.

Italy’s prime minister says it could be a blueprint for deals between the European Union and nonmember countries, although critics say such plans could breach international law.
…

 As a child growing up in Malta, Paul Caruana Galizia didn’t think much about how his mother regularly checked under the car for bombs.  

Such precautions were just part of being Daphne Caruana Galizia’s son. The investigative journalist was so well known in Malta — beloved and disliked — that everyone just called her Daphne.  

But such precautions were warranted. 

On October 16, 2017, a car bomb killed the journalist near her home in Bidnija. 

The fallout from the targeted killing has reverberated far beyond Malta’s rocky shores, but full justice remains elusive. 

“Everything is still a fight,” Caruana Galizia said.  

Six years after his mother’s death, Caruana Galizia — the youngest of three sons — explores in a new book his mother’s career, her devotion to exposing Maltese corruption, her killing and her legacy.  

Published Tuesday in the United States, A Death in Malta is simultaneously a memoir about a remarkable woman and a denunciation of the system that many say facilitated her death. 

Over a decades-long career as a columnist and blogger, Daphne Caruana Galizia largely focused on corruption in Malta.  

In doing so, she confronted harassment, death threats, lawsuits and arson attacks. After working at various Maltese newspapers, she started the blog Running Commentary, whose online readership rivaled Malta’s established newspapers.  

“She was shaped by Malta as much as she shaped it,” Caruana Galizia said.

Now based in London, Caruana Galizia has followed in his mother’s footsteps, working as a reporter for the news outlet Tortoise. He began work on the book in 2020 at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. 

Caruana Galizia said he expected writing about his mother’s killing to be the hardest part of the project, but he found it even harder to write about her life.

“It’s an awkward thing to interview your maternal grandparents about your murdered mother,” he said.  

In the book, Caruana Galizia recounts the first year after the killing, when a whirlwind of advocacy brought him and his brothers around Europe to meet with lawmakers.  

As a result, his mother became an abstraction, and writing the book was an effort to prevent her from remaining one, he told VOA. 

“I wanted readers to know her, to really understand what she was trying to do through her journalism, where she came from, what she was about, and that she wasn’t a tragic figure, just the victim, someone you’re fascinated by for all the wrong reasons,” Caruana Galizia said.  

“The book is an attempt to restore some of her humanity to her,” he added.  

At the time of her death, Daphne Caruana Galizia had been working on the Panama Papers, a leak of millions of records that exposed widespread international corruption.

She concluded her last blog post, published the day before her killing, writing, “There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate.” 

Six years since her assassination, justice has been slow.  

Three men have been convicted for her murder, and three other suspects — including Yorgen Fenech, one of Malta’s wealthiest businessmen — are awaiting trial. Fenech pleaded not guilty. 

“While the convictions have been positive, the call for full justice will continue to be made until all those responsible are behind bars,” said Jamie Wiseman, Europe advocacy officer at the International Press Institute in Vienna.  

A public inquiry set up to investigate Daphne Caruana Galizia’s death concluded in a 437-page report in 2021 that “the state should shoulder responsibility for the assassination” because it has “created an atmosphere of impunity.”

The shadow of impunity in journalist killings can foster an environment in which more reporters risk deadly violence, press freedom groups say.

And nearly 80% of journalist killings around the world over the past decade remain unsolved, according to data by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The public inquiry issued recommendations as to how Malta’s government could improve press freedom, but progress has been minimal, Wiseman said.

Journalists in Malta are still targeted with strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPPs, a form of legal action used to silence journalists in retaliation for their work.

The free expression group Article 19 reported in August that Malta is the country with the highest number of SLAPPs per capita in the European Union.

At the time of her killing, Daphne Caruana Galizia was battling over 40 libel lawsuits. 

Malta’s Washington Embassy did not reply to VOA’s email requesting comment.  

“We’ve seen very little to no change,” Wiseman said, adding that the government has undertaken just one of many recommendations — by issuing an apology that Wiseman characterized as half-hearted at best. 

Both Caruana Galizia and Wiseman point to the absence of political will to explain why the government has failed to implement the majority of the public inquiry’s recommendations.  

Caruana Galizia also pointed out there has been no successful prosecution of any of the people whose corruption Daphne Caruana Galizia documented.  

Despite the slow progress, Caruana Galizia said he remains optimistic.  

“My brothers and I have always had the view that the moment you start losing faith is the moment it all falls apart,” he said. “You have to believe that a better country is possible. And you have to believe that we will get justice for my mother.”  

 
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NATO has suspended operations for the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, a key Cold War era security pact, in response to Russia pulling out of the agreement.

The CFE includes many of NATO’s 31 member countries and was aimed at limiting the size of Cold War rivals’ forces at or near mutual borders.

Russia formally withdrew from the treaty and blamed the United States, alleging that the U.S. undermined post-Cold War security by expanding the NATO military alliance. 

NATO responded by freezing operations for the agreement on Tuesday, saying it wouldn’t be feasible for the treaty to exist where allied parties abide by it and Russia does not. 

Many NATO allies condemned the action taken by Russia.

“Allies condemn Russia’s decision to withdraw from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), and its war of aggression against Ukraine which is contrary to the Treaty’s objectives,” NATO said in a statement.

Russia’s withdrawal from CFE is the latest in a series of Russian termination of several security agreements involving the U.S. and Russia.

The Kremlin has already revoked its participation in the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and the New START treaty, an arms control pact.

Both the United States and Russia pulled out of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019, with each country citing violations from the other as grounds for their withdrawal.

Following Russia leaving the CFE, the United States said that it would remain committed to “effective critical arms control” in a statement released by U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan. 

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