RIYADMEDIA

Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed to punish “traitors” from the Wagner mercenary group, after its leader swore he would topple Moscow’s military leadership.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, 62, released a series of messages from late Friday into Saturday, claiming that he and his mercenary troops had entered the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and taken control of its military sites.

Here is what we know so far:

What sparked the rebellion?

For months, Prigozhin has been locked in a power struggle with the military top brass, blaming them for his troops’ deaths in eastern Ukraine.

He has repeatedly accused them of failing to equip his private army adequately, of holding up progress with bureaucracy, while claiming victories won by Wagner as their own.

On Friday, Prigozhin’s anger appeared to boil over, as he accused Moscow’s military leadership of ordering strikes on Wagner’s camps and killing a large number of forces.

He said they had to be stopped and vowed to “go to the end.”

He later claimed his forces had downed a Russian military helicopter.

Hours later, the leader of the mercenary group said he had military sites in southern Russia’s Rostov-on-Don “under control.”

How is Moscow reacting?

The Kremlin had said overnight that “measures are being taken” against the mutiny.

Russia has tightened security in Moscow and several regions such as Rostov and Lipetsk.

Putin has called the Wagner mutiny a “deadly threat” to Russia and urged the country to unite.

Branding the action by Wagner mercenaries as “treason”, he vowed “inevitable punishment.”

Who are the Wagner troops?

The private army had been involved in conflicts in the Middle East and Africa but always denied involvement.

Prigozhin last year admitted he had founded the group, recruiting the soldiers from Russian prisons in exchange for amnesty.

In eastern Ukraine, the mercenary unit has been spearheading Russia’s costly battles.

It had been at the forefront of the months-long assault for Bakhmut, capturing the site for Russia, but at huge losses.

How this affects Russia’s war

The rebellion marks the most serious challenge yet to Putin’s long rule and Russia’s most serious security crisis since he came to power in late 1999.

It would divert attention and resources away from the battlefields in Ukraine, at a time when Kyiv is in the midst of a counteroffensive to seize back territory.

Ukraine’s army has said it was “watching” the infighting between Prigozhin and Putin.

Moscow meanwhile has warned that Kyiv’s army was seizing the moment to concentrate its troops “for offensive actions” near Bakhmut.

The significance of the mutiny was also not lost on world leaders, with leaders of the United States, France and Germany all saying that they are watching developments closely.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Wagner Group mercenaries Saturday that armed mutiny is treason and anyone who takes up arms against Russia would be punished.

Putin promised, in an emergency televised address, to take decisive action to stabilize Rostov-on-Don, a southern Russian city where Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said his forces had taken control of all military installations.

“It is a blow to Russia, to our people. And our actions to defend the Fatherland against such a threat will be harsh. All those who deliberately stepped on the path of betrayal, who prepared an armed insurrection, who took the path of blackmail and terrorist methods, will suffer inevitable punishment, will answer both to the law and to our people,” Putin said, calling the Wagner group’s action a “stab in the back.”

Earlier Saturday, Russia said an anti-terrorist operation regime is up and running in Moscow, after Prigozhin vowed to overthrow Russia’s military leadership.

Russia is appealing to the mercenaries of the Wagner Group to abandon the organization and its leader.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement, posted on Telegram that was directed to the mercenary fighters, that they had been deceived and drawn into a “criminal adventure” orchestrated by Prigozhin.

Prigozhin said early Saturday his forces had seized control of the Russian army’s headquarters in Rostov and that his forces were in control of the city’s military sites.

“We are inside the (army) headquarters, it is 7:30 a.m. (0430 GMT). Military sites in Rostov, including an aerodrome, are under control,” Prigozhin said in a video on Telegram.

Prigozhin and his fighters had crossed from Ukraine into Russia and entered Rostov, facing no resistance by border guards. Prigozhin said his men were ready to go “all the way” against the Russian military and would destroy anyone who stood in their way.

“Everyone who will try to put up resistance … we will consider it a threat and destroy it immediately, including any checkpoints that will be in our way and any aircraft that we see over our heads. I am asking everyone to remain calm and not succumb to provocations, stay in their homes. It is advisable not to go outside along the route of our movement,” he continued.

“After we finish what we started, we will return to the front to defend our Motherland,” Prigozhin said. “There are 25,000 of us, and we are going to figure out why this country is in such a mess. Twenty-five thousand are expected as a tactical reserve, and the strategic reserve is the whole army and the whole country. Everyone who wants to join. We must end this disgrace,” he said.

Officials in Voronezh reported Saturday a military column moving on federal highway M4 Don, but it was not immediately clear which direction the column is moving. In addition, the mayor of Moscow has announced that “anti-terrorist measures are being implemented” in the capital, with checkpoints possibly being set up on the roads.

The White House said it is monitoring the standoff between top Russian military officials and the Wagner force and will be consulting with allies and partners on developments, National Security Council spokesperson Adam Hodge told VOA Friday.

British officials said Saturday they are monitoring the situation in Russia. “Over the coming hours, the loyalty of Russia’s security forces, and especially the Russian National Guard, will be key to how the crisis plays out. This represents the most significant challenge to the Russian state in recent times,” Britain’s Defense Ministry said in a tweet.

Prigozhin said Friday that Wagner field camps were struck by rockets, helicopter gunships and artillery fire on orders from the chief of the military’s General Staff, General Valery Gerasimov. He charged that Gerasimov issued the order after a meeting with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, at which they decided to destroy Wagner.

The Russian Defense Ministry rejected Prigozhin’s claims.

Prigozhin said the Wagner Group commanders’ council has vowed to punish Shoigu.

“The evil that the military leadership of the country is responsible for must be stopped. They neglect the lives of soldiers, they forgot the word ‘justice,’ which we will bring back,” he said.

“Therefore, those who killed our guys today, those who killed tens, many tens of thousands of lives of Russian soldiers, will be punished,” he said, announcing that his forces would march to secure justice for the lost fighters.

Russia’s Federal Security Service, the FSB, opened a criminal investigation on Friday against Prigozhin, accusing him of armed mutiny, citing the National Anti-Terrorism Committee, an arm of the FSB.

The crime is punishable by up to 20 years in prison, according to Russia’s chief prosecutor.

Political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya told The Associated Press this may well be the last of Prigozhin.

“Now that the state has actively engaged, there’s no turning back,” she posted on Twitter. “The termination of Prigozhin and Wagner is imminent. The only possibility now is absolute obliteration, with the degree of resistance from the Wagner group being the only variable. … Confrontation seems totally futile.”

Prigozhin Friday said the Kremlin’s reasoning for invading Ukraine is based on lies fabricated by the army’s top brass. He has for months openly accused Shoigu and Gerasimov of gross incompetence.

“The Defense Ministry is trying to deceive society and the president and tell us a story about how there was crazy aggression from Ukraine and that they were planning to attack us with the whole of NATO,” Prigozhin said in a video clip released on Telegram by his press service.

He went on to accuse Shoigu: “The war was needed … so that Shoigu could become a marshal … so that he could get a second ‘Hero’ [of Russia] medal,” he added. “The war wasn’t needed to demilitarize or denazify Ukraine.”

The Wagner chief also attacked the ruling elite, saying greed fueled its desire to absorb the assets from Ukraine’s Donbas region. “The task was to divide material assets,” he said. “There was massive theft in the Donbas, but they wanted more.”

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Once a low-profile businessman who benefited from having President Vladimir Putin as a powerful patron, Yevgeny Prigozhin moved into the global spotlight with Russia’s war in Ukraine.

As the leader of a mercenary force who depicts himself as fighting many of the Russian military’s toughest battles in Ukraine, the 62-year-old Prigozhin has now moved into his most dangerous role yet: preaching open rebellion against his country’s military leadership.

Prigozhin, owner of the Kremlin-allied Wagner Group, has escalated what have been months of scathing criticism of Russia’s conduct of the war by calling Friday for an armed uprising to oust the defense minister. Russian security services reacted immediately, opening a criminal investigation and urging Prigozhin’s arrest.

In a sign of how seriously the Kremlin took Prigozhin’s threat, riot police and the National Guard scrambled to tighten security at key facilities in Moscow, including government agencies and transport infrastructure, Tass reported. Prigozhin, a onetime felon, hot-dog vendor and longtime associate of Putin, urged Russians to join his “march to justice.”

‘Putin’s chef’

Prigozhin and Putin go way back, with both born in Leningrad, what is now known as St. Petersburg.

During the final years of the Soviet Union, Prigozhin served time in prison — 10 years by his own admission — although he does not say what it was for.

Afterward, he owned a hot dog stand and then fancy restaurants that drew interest from Putin. In his first term, the Russian leader took then-French President Jacques Chirac to dine at one of them.

“Vladimir Putin saw how I built a business out of a kiosk, he saw that I don’t mind serving to the esteemed guests because they were my guests,” Prigozhin recalled in an interview published in 2011.

His businesses expanded significantly to catering and providing school lunches. In 2010, Putin helped open Prigozhin’s factory that was built on generous loans by a state bank. In Moscow alone, his company Concord won millions of dollars in contracts to provide meals at public schools. He also organized catering for Kremlin events for several years — earning him the nickname “Putin’s chef” — and has provided catering and utility services to the Russian military.

In 2017, opposition figure and corruption fighter Alexei Navalny accused Prigozhin’s companies of breaking antitrust laws by bidding for some $387 million in Defense Ministry contracts.

Military connection

Prigozhin also owns the Wagner Group, a Kremlin-allied mercenary force that has come to play a central role in Putin’s projection of Russian influence in trouble spots around the world.

The United States, European Union, United Nations and others say the mercenary force has involved itself in conflicts in countries across Africa in particular. Wagner fighters allegedly provide security for national leaders or warlords in exchange for lucrative payments, often including a share of gold or other natural resources. U.S. officials say Russia may also be using Wagner’s work in Africa to support its war in Ukraine.

In Ukraine, Prigozhin’s mercenaries have become a major force in the war, fighting as counterparts to the Russian army in battles with Ukrainian forces.

That includes Wagner fighters taking Bakhmut, the city where the bloodiest and longest battles have taken place. By last month, Wagner Group and Russian forces appeared to have largely won Bakhmut, a victory with strategically slight importance for Russia despite the cost in lives. The U.S. estimates that nearly half of the 20,000 Russian troops killed in Ukraine since December were Wagner fighters in Bakhmut. His soldiers-for-hire included inmates recruited from Russia’s prisons.

Raging against Russia’s generals

As his forces fought and died en masse in Ukraine, Prigozhin raged against Russia’s military brass. In a video released by his team last month, Prigozhin stood next to rows bodies he said were those of Wagner fighters. He accused Russia’s regular military of incompetence and of starving his troops of the weapons and ammunition they needed to fight.

“These are someone’s fathers and someone’s sons,” Prigozhin said then. “The scum that doesn’t give us ammunition will eat their guts in hell.”

A ‘bad actor’ in the US

Prigozhin earlier gained more limited attention in the U.S., when he and a dozen other Russian nationals and three Russian companies were charged in the U.S. with operating a covert social media campaign aimed at fomenting discord ahead of Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory.

They were indicted as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference. The U.S. Treasury Department has sanctioned Prigozhin and associates repeatedly in connection with both his alleged election interference and his leadership of the Wagner Group.

After the 2018 indictment, the RIA Novosti news agency quoted Prigozhin as saying, in a clearly sarcastic remark: “Americans are very impressionable people; they see what they want to see. I treat them with great respect. I’m not at all upset that I’m on this list. If they want to see the devil, let them see him.”

The Biden White House in that episode called him “a known bad actor,” and State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Prigozhin’s “bold confession, if anything, appears to be just a manifestation of the impunity that crooks and cronies enjoy under President Putin and the Kremlin.”

Avoiding challenges to Putin

As Prigozhin grew more outspoken against the way Russia’s conventional military conducted fighting in Ukraine, he continued to play a seemingly indispensable role for the Russian offensive, and appeared to suffer no retaliation from Putin for his criticism of Putin’s generals.

Media reports at times suggested Prigozhin’s influence on Putin was growing and he was after a prominent political post. But analysts warned against overestimating his influence with Putin.

“He’s not one of Putin’s close figures or a confidant,” said Mark Galeotti of University College, London, who specializes in Russian security affairs, speaking on his podcast “In Moscow’s Shadows.”

“Prigozhin does what the Kremlin wants and does very well for himself in the process. But that’s the thing — he is part of the staff rather than part of the family,” Galeotti said.
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The owner of the Wagner private military group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said early Saturday his forces had seized control of the Russian army’s headquarters in southern Russia’s Rostov-on-Don and that his forces were in control of the city’s military sites.

“We are inside the (army) headquarters, it is 7:30 a.m. (0430 GMT). Military sites in Rostov, including an aerodrome, are under control,” Prigozhin said in a video on Telegram.

Earlier Saturday, Prigozhin and his fighters had crossed from Ukraine into Russia and entered the city of Rostov facing no resistance by border guards. Prigozhin said his men were ready to go “all the way” against the Russian military and would destroy anyone who stood in their way.

Rostov officials have asked residents to stay home and not travel to the city center.

In an audio recording posted on the Telegram messaging app, Prigozhin said young conscripts at checkpoints stood back and did not fight, adding that his forces “aren’t fighting against children.”

Meanwhile, officials in Voronezh are reporting a military column moving on federal highway M4 Don, but it was not immediately clear which direction the column is moving.  In addition, the mayor of Moscow has announced that “anti-terrorist measures are being implemented” in the capital, with checkpoints possibly being set up on the roads.

Prigozhin said Friday that Wagner field camps were struck by rockets, helicopter gunships and artillery fire on orders from the chief of the military’s General Staff, General Valery Gerasimov. He charged that Gerasimov issued the order after a meeting with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, at which they decided to destroy Wagner.

The Russian Defense Ministry rejected Prigozhin’s claims.

Russia’s Federal Security Service, the FSB, opened a criminal investigation on Friday against Prigozhin, accusing him of armed mutiny, citing the National Anti-Terrorism Committee, an arm of the FSB.

The crime is punishable by up to 20 years in prison, according to Russia’s chief prosecutor.

Political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya told The Associated Press that this may well be the last of Prighozin.

“Now that the state has actively engaged, there’s no turning back,” she posted on Twitter. “The termination of Prigozhin and Wagner is imminent. The only possibility now is absolute obliteration, with the degree of resistance from the Wagner group being the only variable. … Confrontation seems totally futile.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin is getting round-the-clock updates from all relevant state security agencies on actions taken to thwart the attempted armed mutiny, the Tass news agency reported Saturday.

Military vehicles have been seen on Moscow streets, Reuters reported.

The White House is monitoring the standoff between top Russian military officials and the Wagner force and will be consulting with allies and partners on developments, National Security Council spokesperson Adam Hodge said Friday. 

The National Anti-Terrorism Committee insisted there is no basis to the allegations made by Prigozhin that the Russian Defense Ministry conducted airstrikes against Wagner bases, killing 2,000 of his fighters.

Prigozhin said the Wagner Group commanders’ council has vowed to punish Shoigu.

“The evil that the military leadership of the country is responsible for must be stopped. They neglect the lives of soldiers, they forgot the word ‘justice,’ which we will bring back,” he said.

“Therefore, those who killed our guys today, those who killed tens, many tens of thousands of lives of Russian soldiers, will be punished,” he said, announcing that his forces would march to secure justice for the lost fighters.

General Sergei Surovikin, the deputy commander of Russian forces in Ukraine, appealed to Wagner’s leaders, commanders and fighters.

“Together with you we have passed a difficult, hard way, we have fought together, taken the risks, suffered losses, we have won together. We are the same blood, we are warriors,” he said. “I call you to stop. The enemy is only waiting for our domestic political situation to deteriorate. We must not play into the hands of the enemy at this difficult time for the country.”

According to Tass, the FSB is calling on Wagner fighters “not to follow Prigozhin’s criminal orders” and to detain him.

Early Saturday, according to audio posted on Telegram, Prigozhin said he and his men had crossed into Russia without resistance.

“Everyone who will try to put up resistance … we will consider it a threat and destroy it immediately, including any checkpoints that will be in our way and any aircraft that we see over our heads. I am asking everyone to remain calm and not succumb to provocations, stay in their homes. It is advisable not to go outside along the route of our movement,” he continued.

“After we finish what we started, we will return to the front to defend our Motherland,” Prigozhin said. “There are 25,000 of us, and we are going to figure out why this country is in such a mess. Twenty-five thousand are expected as a tactical reserve, and the strategic reserve is the whole army and the whole country. Everyone who wants to join. We must end this disgrace,” he said.

Earlier Friday, Prigozhin said the Kremlin’s reasoning for invading Ukraine is based on lies fabricated by the army’s top brass. Prigozhin has for months openly accused Shoigu and Gerasimov of gross incompetence.

“The Defense Ministry is trying to deceive society and the president and tell us a story about how there was crazy aggression from Ukraine and that they were planning to attack us with the whole of NATO,” Prigozhin said in a video clip released on Telegram by his press service.

He went on to accuse Shoigu: ”The war was needed … so that Shoigu could become a marshal … so that he could get a second ‘Hero’ [of Russia] medal,” he added. ”The war wasn’t needed to demilitarize or denazify Ukraine.”

The Wagner chief also attacked the ruling elite, saying greed fueled its desire to absorb the assets from Ukraine’s Donbas region. ”The task was to divide material assets,” he said. “There was massive theft in the Donbas, but they wanted more.”

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

EU officials are backing the idea that proceeds from more than $230 billion in frozen Russian assets should finance Ukraine’s war effort and reconstruction. But the European Central Bank cautioned the European Commission against the move because it could harm the euro and hurt financial stability, the Financial Times reports.
A joint statement issued by U.S. President Joe Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said both leaders “have expressed their deep concern over the conflict in Ukraine and mourned its terrible and tragic humanitarian consequences.” The statement also said they are calling for “respect for international law, principles of the UN charter, and territorial integrity and sovereignty.”
President Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, is heading to Denmark this weekend to “to discuss basic principles of peace," in Ukraine, a U.S. official said Friday. Some of the participating countries have refused to condemn Russia’s invasion.

Russia’s Federal Security Services (FSB) opened a criminal investigation Friday against mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, accusing him of armed mutiny, citing the National Anti-Terrorism Committee.

The crime is punishable by up to 20 years in prison, according to Russia’s chief prosecutor.

The NAC, which is part of the FSB, insisted there is no basis to the allegations made by Prigozhin earlier Friday that the Russian Ministry of Defense conducted an airstrike against Wagner bases, killing 2,000 of his fighters.

Prigozhin accused the Russian military, acting on the orders of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, of shelling his troops’ positions in Ukraine.

“The Minister of Defense arrived specially in Rostov to carry out an operation to destroy the Wagner PMC (private military company),” he wrote on his Telegram social media channel.

An unverified video posted on the “Razgruzka Wagner” (Wagner’s Combat Vest) Telegram channel showed a scene in a forest where small fires were burning and trees appeared to have been damaged by explosions.

Prigozhin said the Wagner Group commanders’ council has vowed to punish Shoigu.

“The evil that the military leadership of the country is responsible for must be stopped. They neglect the lives of soldiers, they forgot the word ‘justice,’ which we will bring back,” he said.

“Therefore, those who killed our guys today, those who killed tens, many tens of thousands of lives of Russian soldiers, will be punished,” he said, announcing that his forces would begin a march to secure justice for the lost fighters.

Early Saturday, according to audio posted on Telegram, Prigozhin said he and his men had crossed into Russia.

“Everyone who will try to put up resistance … we will consider it a threat and destroy it immediately, including any checkpoints that will be in our way and any aircraft that we see over our heads. I am asking everyone to remain calm and not succumb to provocations, stay in their homes. It is advisable not to go outside along the route of our movement,” he continued.

“After we finish what we started, we will return to the front to defend our Motherland,” Prigozhin said. “There are 25,000 of us, and we are going to figure out why this country is in such a mess. Twenty-five thousand are expected as a tactical reserve, and the strategic reserve is the whole army and the whole country. Everyone who wants to join. We must end this disgrace,” he said.

The Russian Defense Ministry rejected Prigozhin’s claim, and the NAC said it has opened a criminal inquiry into Prigozhin on charges of calling for a military coup. According to Russian state news agency TASS, the FSB is calling on Wagner fighters “not to follow Prigozhin’s criminal orders” and to detain him.

Military vehicles have been seen on Moscow streets, Reuters reported.

In Washington, the White House said it is monitoring the situation and consulting with allies, National Security Council spokesperson Adam Hodge said Friday.

The Interfax news agency quoted Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov as saying that President Vladimir Putin has been briefed on the developments and “necessary measures are being taken.”

Earlier Friday, Prigozhin said the Kremlin’s reasoning for invading Ukraine is based on lies fabricated by the army’s top brass. Prigozhin has for months openly accused Shoigu and Russia’s top general, Valery Gerasimov, of gross incompetence.

“The Defense Ministry is trying to deceive society and the president and tell us a story about how there was crazy aggression from Ukraine and that they were planning to attack us with the whole of NATO,” Prigozhin said in a video clip released on the Telegram messaging app by his press service.

He went on to accuse Shoigu: “The war was needed … so that Shoigu could become a marshal … so that he could get a second ‘Hero’ [of Russia] medal,” he added. “The war wasn’t needed to demilitarize or denazify Ukraine.”

The Wagner chief also attacked the ruling elite, saying greed fueled its desire to absorb the assets from Ukraine’s Donbas region. “The task was to divide material assets,” he said. “There was massive theft in the Donbas, but they wanted more.”

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Russia urged Azerbaijan to fully unblock the Lachin corridor on Friday, the only road that links Armenia with the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave where more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians live and rely on it for vital supplies. 

Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but its inhabitants are predominantly ethnic Armenians. The enclave broke away from Baku’s control in a war in the early 1990s. 

After heavy fighting and a Russian-brokered cease-fire, Azerbaijan in 2020 took over areas that had been controlled by ethnic Armenians in and around the mountain enclave, and Baku is now pushing for ethnic Armenian government and military structures to be dissolved and for the population to accept Azerbaijani passports. 

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement on Friday that the entrance to the corridor had been blocked by Azerbaijan in a move she said increased tensions at a time when Baku and Armenia are trying to agree to a peace treaty.  

There have been reports that the road was totally closed after June 15, when shots were fired in an incident in which the South Caucasus countries said in separate statements that one Azerbaijani and one Armenian border guard had been wounded. 

“Such steps lead to increased tension and are not conducive to maintaining a normal atmosphere around the ongoing process of normalizing relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia with Russian assistance. We call on Baku to unblock the Lachin corridor in its entirety,” said Zakharova.  

Baku has denied imposing a blockade but has said it has taken what it called “relevant measures to investigate the reasons for this provocation, as well as to ensure the security of the border checkpoint.”  

Azerbaijan in April established a checkpoint at the entrance to the corridor following months of disruption caused by people who called themselves Azerbaijani environmental activists, a step it said was essential due to what it cast as Armenia’s use of the road to transport weapons. 

Ruben Vardanyan, a billionaire banker who was a top official in Karabakh’s separatist government until February, on Thursday accused Baku of trying to “ethnically cleanse” the enclave by imposing what he called a goods and energy blockade — allegations that Azerbaijan denies. 

Azerbaijan’s foreign minister told Reuters in an interview that Baku was rejecting a demand from Armenia to provide special security guarantees for the enclave’s ethnic Armenians ahead of a new round of peace talks, saying they were sufficiently protected.
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Thirty-seven migrants are missing after their boat capsized between Tunisia and the Italian island of Lampedusa, the International Organization for Migration said on Friday, citing an account by four survivors of the shipwreck.

The United Nations agency said the survivors, all from sub-Saharan Africa, arrived on Lampedusa late on Thursday, having been rescued by another vessel.

The survivors told the IOM they left the Tunisian port of Sfax heading for Italy with 46 people aboard, but their boat capsized in strong winds.

They recounted that five of their fellow travelers were picked up by another boat, while 37 are missing and feared dead, including seven women and a child, an IOM spokesman in Italy told Reuters.

Earlier, the U.N.’s High Commission for Refugees gave a similar account of the same incident, but said 40 people were believed to be missing, rather than 37.

There has been a surge in migration across the Mediterranean from Tunisia this year after a crackdown by Tunis on migrants from sub-Saharan Africa living in the country illegally and reports of racist attacks amid an economic downturn.

At least 12 African migrants were missing and three died after three boats sank off Tunisia, a judicial official said on Thursday, while the country’s coast guard rescued 152 others.

It was not immediately clear if the four survivors who recounted their story to the IOM were on one of these three boats.
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Poland hosts about half a million school-aged Ukrainian refugee children. Many high school graduates outside their homeland choose to take Ukraine’s final state exam, which is mandatory for applying to Ukrainian universities and sometimes accepted by European ones. After the war started, the test was held in Ukraine and locations abroad. Lesia Bakalets has the story from Warsaw, Poland. Video: Daniil Batushchak 
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Saturday marks the anniversary of an attempt by approximately 2,000 sub-Saharan African migrants and refugees to cross over from Morocco to Spain. At least 37 people died in the attempt, and 76 are still unaccounted for.

Amnesty International Friday accused Morocco and Spain of conducting a cover-up of their racist practices at the border.

The group said Spain failed to open an independent investigation after Spanish prosecutors dropped their investigation because they said they had not found any criminal misconduct by Spanish security forces. Morocco never opened a probe, the group said.

“At the Moroccan side of the border, and as a result of the cooperation between the two countries, Moroccan authorities continue preventing Black sub-Saharan Africans from reaching Spanish territory to apply for asylum at the border post,” AI said in a statement.

“What happened in Melilla is a salutary reminder that racist migration policies aimed at fortifying borders and restricting safe and legal routes for people seeking safety in Europe have real and deadly consequences,” Amnesty International Secretary-General Agnès Callamard said in the statement. “It is hard to escape the racialized element of what happened in Melilla and the dehumanizing way in which Black people are treated at Europe’s borders, when they are living, missing or dead.”

The organization said 22 bodies from the incident remain in a morgue in Morocco.
…

Latest developments:

Ukraine's military said early Friday that air raid alerts had been sounded throughout the country.
A joint statement issued by U.S. President Joe Biden and Indian Prime Minister Marendra Modi said Thursday that both leaders "have expressed their deep concern over the conflict in Ukraine and mourned its terrible and tragic humanitarian consequences." The statement also said Biden and Modi, who is in Washington on a state visit, have, in connection with Ukraine, called for "respect for international law, principles of the UN charter, and territorial integrity and sovereignty."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said there was fierce fighting along the front lines but that his forces were advancing in southern Ukraine and holding defensive lines in the eastern part of the country.
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi said the safety and security situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is "extremely fragile" following the destruction of the nearby Kakhovka dam. He called on all sides in the conflict to act to adhere to principles to prevent a nuclear accident.   

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday he believes Russia may be preparing for an attack on Ukraine’s nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest nuclear facility.

“Full de-occupation of the Zaporizhzhia NPP is a must,” the president said in his daily address.   “Anyone who turns a blind eye to Russia’s occupation of such a facility, to Russia’s mining of the territory and facilities of the nuclear power plant, is actually contributing not only to this Russian evil, but also to terror in general.”

Zelenskyy warned about the dire consequences of such an attack. “Obviously, radiation does not ask who is neutral and can reach anyone in the world,” the Ukrainian leader said.

Russian officials said Thursday that overnight airstrikes by Ukrainian forces damaged a bridge linking the Crimean Peninsula to the Kherson region of southern Ukraine.

The Chongar bridge is one of the few routes Russian forces use to move between Crimea and other parts of Ukraine under Russian control. Russia has occupied Crimea since annexing it in 2014 in a move rejected by most of the international community.

The Russian state news agency RIA-Novosti reported that investigators said four missiles were fired at the bridge and that the remains of one of them showed markings of being French-made. Vladimir Konstantinov, chairman of Crimea’s parliament, said damage to the bridge was not severe and likely could be repaired within several days.

As is often the case, Ukraine did not confirm responsibility for the attack, with a defense spokesman saying only, “If the stars are lit, it means it was done for a reason, right? We can only say that there will be a continuation.”

Russia and Ukraine control different parts of Kherson province, a focus of fighting during Kyiv’s counteroffensive aimed at recapturing Russia-held territory.

Overall, the counteroffensive appears to be slow-moving. Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said that Ukraine’s army had advanced seven kilometers and had retaken territory that included eight villages during the last two weeks.

“As the president of Ukraine [Volodymyr Zelenskyy] said yesterday, the counteroffensive is not a Hollywood movie. It’s not easy walk,” Shmyhal told reporters at a Ukraine Recovery Conference in London.

“The counteroffensive is a number of military operations,” he said. “Sometimes it’s offensive, sometimes it’s defensive. Sometimes it could be tactical pauses. Unfortunately, during our preparation for this counteroffensive, Russians were preparing too. So, there is so much minefields, which really make it slower.”

“We [do] not bring our people into the fire of this war as Russians (are) doing. … We will do very smart offensive operations and because of this it will take time,” the prime minister said. “We all should have patience and we will see results.”

EU sanctions

The European Union Wednesday imposed new sanctions against Russia for its war against Ukraine, targeting countries where businesses have used loopholes in previous sanctions to continue to trade with Russia, effectively supporting President Vladimir Putin’s 16-month invasion.

The 27-nation EU had previously imposed 10 rounds of sanctions against Russian companies, while freezing assets and imposing travel bans on more than 1,000 officials.

The new sanctions are aimed at keeping key war-related materials and goods from reaching Russia via nations that trade with the EU but have also maintained a business-as-usual relationship with Moscow.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, head of the EU’s executive arm, said the new sanctions will “deal a further blow to Putin’s war machine with tightened export restrictions, targeting entities supporting the Kremlin.”

“Our anti-circumvention tool will prevent Russia from getting its hands on sanctioned goods,” she said.

Aside from sanctions against Iranians alleged to be supplying drones to Russia, it is the first time that the EU has targeted trade via other countries.

The new package will also target 71 individuals and 33 entities in relation with the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia.

Also included is a prohibition to accessing ports in the EU by vessels engaged in ship-to-ship transfers when there is a suspicion that a boat is not respecting the ban on importing seaborne Russian crude oil and petroleum products into the bloc. In addition, the package extends the suspension of the broadcasting licenses in the EU of five Russian media outlets under state control.

NATO expansion

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday encouraged Turkey to support ratifying Sweden’s accession to NATO.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Blinken expressed support for Sweden to be admitted at this time during talks with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on the sidelines of a Ukraine recovery conference in London.

Sweden and Finland applied for membership in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Finland officially joined in April, but Sweden’s accession has been held up by Turkey’s objections to what it said was a lack of action by Sweden against groups that Turkey considers terrorists.

With three weeks until NATO leaders gather for a summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, Sweden expressed hope that it will be able to join the alliance.

Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom told Reuters that Turkey’s parliament should begin the process of ratifying Sweden’s NATO bid.

Sweden has carried out a number of reforms, including a new anti-terror law, as part of an agreement struck with Turkey last year to address security concerns.

“Our judgment is that we have done what was expected of us. Now it is time for the Turkish parliament to start the ratification process,” Billstrom told Reuters on the sidelines of a meeting in parliament.

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

Frustration with the rising threat of terrorism emanating from Afghanistan emerged at a meeting this week of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a defense and economic alliance platform consisting of China, Russia, India, Iran and five other Asian states.

Russia and Tajikistan say Afghanistan, which holds an uncertain observer status in the SCO following the Taliban’s return to power in 2021, has become a breeding ground for regional terrorist groups.

“According to our information, terrorist groups such as al-Qaida, Hizb ut-Tahrir, the Islamic Movement of Eastern Turkistan, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, TTP, Jamaat Ansarullah are currently present in Afghanistan and pose serious threats to neighboring countries,” said Amirbeg Begnazarov, a representative of Tajikistan, at an event Wednesday jointly hosted by the SCO and the United Nations.

He said his nation was “very concerned about the concentration of different terrorist groups next to our borders that we’ve never had before [and it] is increasing day by day.”

Russia’s defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, recently said that the Taliban’s return to power had bolstered terrorist organizations operating in Afghanistan, a charge echoed by other highly placed Russians.

Vladimir Voronkov, a former Russian diplomat who now heads the U.N. Office of Counter-Terrorism, said this week that Afghanistan had become “an epicenter for the dissemination of terrorism” under the Taliban.

Unlike Russia, China has refrained from making such blistering allegations against the Taliban and has instead actively engaged the isolated Islamist regime.

“Afghanistan is at a critical phase of transitioning from chaos to order,” Zhang Jun, the Chinese permanent representative at the U.N., told a Security Council meeting on Afghanistan on Wednesday.

Zhang said the international community should engage with de facto Taliban authorities and help the country achieve stability and economic prosperity.

Domestic vs. regional concerns

Russia cautiously welcomed the Taliban’s return to power following the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.

Shy of a formal recognition, Russia has handed over the Afghan Embassy in Moscow to the Taliban. It maintained its diplomatic mission in Kabul until September, when it was attacked.

Ten people, including two Russian Embassy staff, were killed and several others injured in the suicide attack claimed by the Islamic State extremist group.

The attack prompted Russia to shut its diplomatic mission in Afghanistan, warning about increased terrorism risks originating from the landlocked nation and threatening its Central Asian neighbors where Russian troops are stationed.

Within SCO members, “differing threat perceptions of particular extremist or separatist groups, political sensitivities and sovereignty concerns, as well as lack of genuine trust among member states, make concrete counterterrorism cooperation very difficult — besides some limited information sharing,” Jiayi Zhou, an expert at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, told VOA.

While Russia is more vocal about terrorism threats it perceives from the Islamic State group, some SCO members see threats from other militant groups allegedly based in Afghanistan, experts say.

“The trust deficits and divergences within the SCO have resulted in most member countries using bilateral channels to establish ties with the Taliban for geostrategic, geoeconomics and individual security guarantees,” said Ayjaz Ahmad Wani, a researcher at the Observer Research Foundation, an Indian policy institute.

Pakistan has followed the Chinese lead even while officials say Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, a militant group seeking to overthrow the government in Islamabad, has intensified terrorist attacks from its purported havens inside Afghanistan.

Last month, at the 5th China-Afghanistan-Pakistan Foreign Ministers’ Dialogue in Islamabad, the parties agreed to promote trilateral cooperation in security, development and political fronts.

“The SCO as a regional security platform has largely been ineffective,” said Zhou, adding that member states have pursued different security and political priorities since the inception of the organization more than two decades ago.

Toppled from power in 2001 by a U.S.-led coalition for their alleged support for international terrorism, the Taliban, even after recapturing power in 2021, face terrorism sanctions from many countries.

Taliban leaders maintain that they host no terrorist group and do not threaten the security of any nation.
…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Press freedom groups have welcomed Gvaramia’s release.

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

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

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

VOA’s Georgian Service contributed to this report.
…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But the deal unraveled almost immediately as both leaders appeared to renege on commitments that Borrell suggested they had made.
…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He said agents were having trouble getting cooperation from families.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The survivors’ tally stands at 104, and a dozen are Pakistani.
…

Russia’s Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a lawsuit by imprisoned opposition leader Alexey Navalny contesting prison regulations that allow prison officials to deprive him of stationery and pens. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Navalny’s associates and supporters have accused prison authorities of failing to provide him with proper medical assistance and voiced concern about his failing health. 
…

The World Bank chief will announce a raft of measures on Thursday to aid countries hit by natural disasters, including a pause in debt repayments to the lender, as world leaders gather in Paris to give impetus to a new global finance agenda.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

New vision

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some leaders are expected to lend their weight to long-stalled proposals for a levy on shipping industry emissions ahead of a meeting next month of the International Maritime Organization officials said.
…

Six people remained in a critical condition and one person was believed still missing on Thursday, one day after a blast ripped through a street near Paris’ historic Latin Quarter, the city’s public prosecution office said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She said three children who had been passing by at the time were among the injured, although their lives were not in danger.
…

More than 30 migrants were feared dead after a small boat headed for Spain’s Canary Islands sank Wednesday, two migration-focused organizations said, as they criticized Spain and Morocco for not intervening earlier to rescue the vessel’s passengers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The migrants using the route are typically from several countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
…

Last week’s migrant boat accident in the Mediterranean Sea near Greece has sent shock waves through Pakistan, home to almost 300 passengers of the overcrowded fishing vessel. VOA’s Pakistan bureau chief Sarah Zaman met with some parents waiting to learn the fate of their missing children.
…

Iran met in Qatar with European Union mediator Enrique Mora as part of efforts to revive its 2015 nuclear pact with world powers, as Tehran and Washington seek to cool tensions with a mutual understanding to help end the deadlock.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The meeting between Bagheri Kani and Mora in Qatar’s capital, Doha, came days after Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the last say on all state matters such as the nuclear dossier, said a new nuclear deal with the West was possible. 
…

Turkey’s LGBT+ movement is celebrating pride this week in Istanbul, but authorities are cracking down on any public displays as newly reelected President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accuses the movement of posing a threat to Turkish society. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
…

A court in Belarus on Wednesday handed lengthy prison terms to 18 participants of mass anti-government protests that shook the country in 2020, the latest step in a brutal years-long effort to stifle all and any dissent.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Another serviceman, Ihar Chamyakin, was sentenced in absentia to 20 years in prison.
…

Andrew Tate, a social media personality known for expressing misogynistic views online, appeared Wednesday at a court in Romania, where prosecutors have charged him with rape, human trafficking and forming a criminal gang to exploit women. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Several women in Britain also are pursuing civil claims to obtain damages from Tate, alleging they were victims of sexual violence. In a recent interview with the BBC, Tate denied spreading a culture of misogyny and accusations that he manipulated women for financial gain. 
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