Month: December 2017

A British woman has been convicted in Egypt of trying to smuggle a banned prescription painkiller into the country.

A court sentenced 33-year-old Laura Plummer to a three-year prison term Tuesday. Plummer was arrested in October when she arrived in Hurghada, a resort city along the Red Sea, and customs officers found hundreds of Tramadol pills in her luggage.  

Tramadol is banned in Egypt because it can be used as a recreational drug. Plummer has maintained the drugs were for her Egyptian boyfriend who suffers from chronic back pain.  

The verdict can be appealed.
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The U.N. children’s fund warns that 220,000 children in the area of eastern Ukraine controlled by Russian-backed rebels are at risk of being killed or maimed by landmines and other explosive remnants of war.

Eastern Ukraine is one of the most mine-contaminated places on earth. Well into its fourth year of war, the Donetsk and Luhansk regions are riddled with deadly explosives that are taking a heavy toll on the lives and well-being of its children.

The U.N. children’s fund estimates landmines and other explosive weapons kill or maim one child a week along eastern Ukraine’s contact line. This is a 500-kilometer strip of land that divides government and rebel-controlled areas where fighting is most intense.

UNICEF warns children, especially very young children, are at great risk of death and injury from these lethal weapons. The agency says most casualties occur when children pick up these explosive devices, which look like toys.

During mine awareness demonstrations, educators teach children how to protect themselves from landmines, unexploded ordnance and other deadly remnants of war.

Since 2015, UNICEF and partners have reached more than half a million children in eastern Ukraine with this message through entertaining theatrical skits and interactive shows.

While these weapons pose an ever-present danger to children, UNICEF says they also can damage crucial infrastructure, such as water, electricity and gas facilities.

In one incident earlier this month, UNICEF says, unexploded ordnance was found at the Donetsk Filter Station, a facility that provides water to nearly 350,000 people in the region.
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A British naval frigate escorted a Russian warship through the North Sea near UK waters on Christmas Day, the Royal Navy confirmed.

The HMS St. Albans monitored the Russian vessel Admiral Gorshkov as it made its way across the North Sea close to Britain. 

Although such crossings are fairly routine, there has been a rise in the number of Russian ships passing close to British territorial waters in recent days.

The Royal Navy said there had been a recent “upsurge in Russian units transiting UK waters.” Britain recently warned of a new threat posed by Russia to internet cables under the sea.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach, the chief of the defense staff, said earlier this month that Britain and NATO needed to prioritize protecting the lines of communication.

He said it would “immediately and potentially catastrophically” hit the economy if they were cut or disrupted.

The cables criss-cross the seabed, connecting up countries and continents.
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Lawyers and politicians in Turkey are warning that a new emergency decree could incite violence, and encourage formation of vigilante groups.

Turkey’s main lawyers’ group, the Union of Turkish Bar Associations, says the decree is vaguely-worded and could lead to violence.

The new law, passed Sunday, grants immunity to civilians who acted to stop an attempted coup in July 2016. Previously, the government gave immunity to law enforcement and government officials who took actions to thwart the coup.

Turkey’s former president Abdullah Gul, a longtime ally of President Tayyip Erdogan also expressed concern about the measure, in a rare show of opposition. Gul said the law is “worrisome” and said it should be re-evaluated.

Also Monday, Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party said it would appeal the decree at the constitutional court. Ivi Parti, a new opposition party, said the decree could provoke groups to attack opposition protesters, by alleging they are linked to the failed coup.

Turkey’s government has defended the emergency decree as a way to protect civilians who took to the streets to denounce the coup attempt from being punished for their actions.

The government blames the coup attempt on followers of Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish-born cleric based in the United States and his movement, which it calls the “Fethullah Terrorist Organization.” Gulen denies any involvement.

President Erdogan’s government declared a state of emergency in the aftermath of the attempted coup and has arrested more than 50,000 people and fired more than 150,000 others for alleged links to Gulen.

Another decree passed Sunday dismissed 2,756 more public employees and reinstated 115 employees. Other decrees Sunday ordered Turkey’s defense procurement agency was to report to President Erdogan instead of the defense ministry and also closed 17 Turkish institutions, including two newspapers.

 
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Russian authorities say a bus careened off a road and onto steps leading into an underground passageway in Moscow, killing at least four people and leaving 13 others injured.

Moscow police said passengers and pedestrians were among those killed in Monday’s crash. Police immediately ruled out a possibility of it being an attack, saying that they suspect a mechanical fault or that the driver lost control of the vehicle. Police were questioning the driver.

Photos taken at the scene show the bus on the steps leading into the underground passageway.

Russian news agencies reporting from the scene quoted Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin as saying that he has ordered all city buses to be checked in the aftermath of the crash.

 
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Pope Francis called for “peace for Jerusalem” and “mutual trust” on the Korean peninsula as he focused on the suffering of children in conflicts across the world, in his traditional Christmas Day address “Urbi et Orbi” (“To the City and to the World”) from the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica.

Francis spoke of “growing tensions between Israelis and Palestinians”, expressing his hope that the “will to resume dialogue may prevail between the parties and that a negotiated solution can finally be reached, one that would allow the peaceful coexistence of two states”.

“Let us pray that confrontation may be overcome on the Korean peninsula and that mutual trust may increase in the interest of the world as a whole,” the pontiff said.

During his Christmas Eve Mass on Sunday, attended by about 10,000 people inside and outside of St. Peter’s Basilica, Francis strongly defended migrants, comparing them to Mary and Joseph finding no place to stay in Bethlehem, saying that faith demands that foreigners be embraced and calling for a “new social imagination.”

The pope urged the world’s more than 1.2 billion Catholics not to ignore the plight of migrants who are “driven from their land” because of leaders willingness to shed “innocent blood”.
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Aid agencies report thousands of people in conflict-ridden Ukraine face a bleak Christmas and New Year because of freezing temperatures and shortages of essential goods.

Temperatures in Ukraine can plummet to minus 20 degrees Celsius in January. People throughout the country are suffering. But, those living in territory held by Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine are most affected by the shortages brought on by nearly four years of war.

The U.N. refugee agency reports thousands of people displaced by conflict from their homes in the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk are having a tough time surviving. The situation is particularly difficult, it says, for people living near the contact line separating the government and rebel-controlled areas.

UNHCR spokesman Andre Mahecic says houses are frequently damaged by shelling. He says infrastructure is degraded and transport is bad, making it difficult for people to collect benefits, food and medicine.

“In some villages, the infrastructure, such as gas pipes have been damaged by shelling and, as a result, coal and firewood represent some sole means of heating the homes,” says Mahecic. “Our staff report that the people are often forced to make choices between essentially buying food and medicines, or fuel to heat their homes.”

The UNHCR is providing aid to 15,300 of the most vulnerable people, including single parents, the elderly, families with many children and people with disabilities or chronic illnesses.

Most of the recipients are in the eastern non-government controlled areas where the situation is particularly critical. The UNHCR is stepping up the distribution of clothes, warm jackets and boots, coal for heating and cash grants to cover winter expenses.

In government-controlled areas, the agency’s aid consists of unconditional cash grants to 1,000 households and winter jackets to more than 4,700 children.

 
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Russia and China each signaled Monday a desire for a peaceful resolution to the tensions surrounding North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile activity.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told state-run media that no one wants to see war on the Korean Peninsula and that he hopes the United States is not planning a military approach to resolving the situation.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said during a briefing Monday that all countries should “exercise restraint and make proactive and constructive efforts to ease the tensions on the peninsula.”

China also said new U.N. sanctions should not have a detrimental humanitarian impact on North Korean civilians or affect “normal economic exchanges and cooperation.”

Security Council vote

The U.N. Security Council unanimously approved a resolution Friday limiting the amount of gasoline and diesel North Korea can import and tightening inspections of ships suspected of illegally carrying banned items to or from North Korea.

The measure also orders U.N. members to send home all North Koreans working in foreign countries to within two years — a move aimed at cutting off a source of revenue for Kim Jong Un’s government, which routinely confiscates much of their earnings.

The United States estimates as many as 80,000 North Koreans work in China and at least 30,000 in Russia.

​North Korea: ‘Act of War’

North Korea rejected the new sanctions, calling them an “act of war” and “tantamount to a complete economic blockade.”

“If the U.S. wishes to live safely, it must abandon its hostile policy…and learn to co-exist with the country that has nuclear weapons,” a statement carried by the official North Korea news agency said. It also threatened that all nations that back the resolution will “pay a heavy price.”

Previous U.N. sanctions imposed against North Korea have failed to deter it from testing missiles and pursuing nuclear weapons.

The United States has rejected North Korea’s offer to freeze its nuclear ambitions if the U.S. suspends military exercises on and near the Korean Peninsula.
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Spain is trying to turn back a growing wave of African migrants who seek to enter the country through its southern coast or its small enclaves in North Africa.

About 800 migrants rushed the border fence in the enclave of Ceuta on Friday. At least 30 managed to climb over the seven-meter-high fence according to Spanish police, who turned back hundreds more with help from Moroccan riot police.

Ceuta and another city along the Moroccan coast, Melilla, have been Spanish possessions since the 1500s.

Earlier in the week, the Spanish coast guard rescued about 60 migrants trying to cross the narrow sea strait that separates Spain from Africa in flimsy rubber boats.

The number of immigrants reaching Spain, most of them from sub-Saharan African countries, tripled from 9,000 last year to 27,000 in 2017, according to Spanish Interior Minister Juan Zoido, who has said that controlling illegal immigration is one of his government’s “top priorities.”

The influx remains well below that of Italy’s, which has received over 100,000 immigrants this year.

But Spain is preparing for more scenes like the one in Ceuta.The United Nations refugee agency says African immigration routes are increasingly shifting away from Libya, the African country closest to Italy, and into Algeria and Morocco, which are are closest to Spain. Incidents of abuse and enslavement inflicted by Libya-based human traffickers are causing the change.

Spain enhanced border protection recently by placing concertina wire atop the fences that surround the 15 kilometer perimeters of Ceuta and Melilla. Heat-sensitive thermal cameras monitor movement along the fences at night, when most border crossings take place.

Often, Spanish police also direct heavily-armed Moroccan teams to points where they detect groups of aliens massing near the fence.

Despite these defenses, large groups have managed to jump, cut or crash through barriers on at least three occasions this year.

“This is starting to look like the U.S. border with Mexico,” a senior Spanish security official told VOA.

Once on Spanish soil, African migrants apply for European Union passes that give them the right to travel anywhere in Europe. The passes usually take just three or four months to process. Immigrants from Guinea and Cameroon, interviewed by VOA at a temporary detention center in Ceuta, say they are headed for France.

Spanish Interior Minister Zoido recently criticized NGOs that offer legal aid to new arrivals for ignoring security concerns.

Most of the migrants come from from Islamic-majority countries, and Spain fears terrorist attacks by Islamic State and other militant groups. Authorities in Ceuta this year rounded up two cells linked to IS that were allegedly preparing attacks.

A Spanish Civil Guard general, Franciso Espiosa, was recently appointed to head an EU military task force that will operate in Africa’s Sahel region, in hopes of stemming the immigrant tide. Espiosa is in charge of activities that range from training local gendarmes to direct missions against human trafficking rings and suspected terror cells.
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Russian anticorruption activist and opposition politician Aleksei Navalny says he has gathered enough endorsements to run in the country’s next presidential election as his supporters organized rallies in 20 cities across Russia to secure the signatures.

An outspoken Kremlin critic, Navalny is barred from running in the March 18, 2018, election because of a criminal conviction that he says is politically motivated. Navalny could run if the conviction is canceled or if he gets a special dispensation.

Navalny spoke at the Moscow rally on December 24, branding Russian President Vladimir Putin a “bad president.”

Some 800 Navalny supporters gathered for the formal endorsement meeting under a giant marquee on a snow-covered riverside in Moscow. The endorsement was observed by officials from the Central Election Commission attended the gathering.

Similar events took place in 19 other cities, including Vladivostok, Novosibirsk, Perm, Omsk, and Krasnoyarsk.

Navalny has said that according to the law, he needed 500 nominations in each of 20 cities across the country.

He later tweeted that he had secured the signatures, saying: “I have become an official candidate nominated by activist groups of voters. Many thanks to those who have taken part in this campaign in all corners of our country. You are the best.”

Navalny also wrote on Twitter that he would file the papers with the Election Commission later in the day.

Police stopped a van carrying 11 opposition activists who were on their way to take part in pro-Navalny rallies in Volgograd, opposition supporter Arsentiy Gundarev said. He said police seized the activists’ passports and other documents.

More than 700 Navalny supporters cast their ballots in Novosibirsk on December 24 to nominate the anticorruption crusader to run in the March 2018 presidential election.

Navalny had also given his backing to an event in Moscow on December 24 organized by Ilya Yashin, an activist and ally of late opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who is also a local legislator in Moscow.

Yashin had dubbed the event a “Day of Free Elections” festival, which he planned to hold in Moscow’s Lermontov Park. On December 20, the Moscow City Court banned the rally, a move Human Rights Watch said is an example of the Kremlin’s crackdown on the opposition.

Yashin tweeted on December 24 that “the atmosphere is getting tense here. There are police at the entrance of my house. Several officers entered the house.”

The rallies coincide with the anniversary of a mass protest in Moscow sparked by what the opposition and others claimed were fraudulent State Duma elections in 2011.

Yashin said on Facebook that he considers the ban “politically motivated and illegal.”

He had argued earlier that as a legislator he did not need the city’s approval to hold the event, which he qualified was a “festival” and not a “demonstration.”

Political rallies in Russia require approval from the authorities.

Navalny supporters hold up red ballot cards in St. Petersburg on December 24.

“The refusal by Moscow authorities to sign off on the planned December 24 rally in support of fair elections is yet another example of how Russian officials use formal pretexts to ban events by the political or civic opposition,” said Tanya Lokshina, the head of the Moscow branch of Human Rights Watch.

“In spring and summer this year, government critics in numerous cities across Russia held peaceful anticorruption protests that authorities refused to authorize, and police detentions were massive and arbitrary.

“In fact, in the first six months of 2017 alone, the number of people administratively punished by Russian authorities for supposedly violating the country’s regulations on public gatherings was 2 1/2 times higher than throughout 2016,” Lokshina explained to RFE/RL in an e-mail.

Yashin had spelled out earlier on his Facebook page why he was organizing the event.

“We will tell people about their electoral rights, which are guaranteed by the constitution. We will organize the registration of people who are prepared to work as monitors. We will put up a stage, invite musicians, and give out souvenirs dedicated to free elections,” Yashin wrote.

Throwing his backing behind the event, Navalny commented on his blog that December 24 was a “beautiful date” to hold a rally, writing, “We will remember December 24, 2011.”

Navalny posted pictures of the tens of thousands who demonstrated in Moscow on that day in 2011. Those protests culminated on May 6, 2012, on the eve of Putin’s inauguration for a third term as Russian president, when hundreds of people were arrested on Moscow’s Bolotnaya Square while demonstrating.

Speaking to RFE/RL’s Russian Service on December 4, Navalny ally Vladimir Milov said it is wrong to expect Navalny’s campaign will give up if or when he is officially barred from running.

“That will only be the start of it,” Milov said, claiming they will dispute the decision in court and “fight for Navalny’s registration until March 18,” the scheduled date of the election, and beyond.

Navalny published his full election platform last week, focusing on fighting corruption and channeling more money into education and health care. He calls for a windfall tax on oligarchs and huge cuts to Russia’s bloated bureaucracy.

Putin announced his decision to run for a fourth term on December 6. His high approval ratings and control over the levers of power make his victory a foregone conclusion in Russia, where government critics say election campaigns and results are manipulated by the authorities.

Analysts say Putin is eager to score a strong win in a vote with a high turnout in order to make his mandate as strong as possible in what could be his final six-year term, as the constitution bars presidents from serving more than two consecutive terms.
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The U.N. refugee agency is urging Greek authorities to speedily transfer thousands of refugees and migrants living under grim conditions on Greek islands to the mainland where they can receive better care.

The agency acknowledges that about 6,000 asylum seekers have been moved to the mainland since mid-October. But, it notes, that still leaves some 10,000 living in crammed, sub-standard conditions in government-run facilities on the islands of Lesvos, Chios and Samos.

The agency says people must urgently be transferred to the mainland as winter begins to bite. UNHCR spokeswoman, Cecile Pouilly, says time is of the essence. She says many people will suffer as accommodations on the islands are inadequate to deal with the winter cold.

“Tension in the reception centers and on the islands have been mounting since the summer when the number of arrivals began rising,” she said. “In some cases, local authorities have opposed efforts to introduce improvements inside the reception centers.”

The UNHCR reports nearly 20,000 people have reached the Greek Aegean islands since July. More than 70 percent of all arrivals this year are Syrian, Iraqi or Afghan. It says four out of 10 are children.

Pouilly tells VOA the European Union’s plan for relocating refugees to different member states appears to have stalled.

“You are right pointing out the fact that there is a need for fair relocation,” she said. “And, we have been calling for a mechanism within the EU to be able to deal with emergency situations and to help states that receive most arrivals. In this particular case, with Greece and Italy.”

Meanwhile, Pouilly says the UNHCR welcomes the support of mayors of towns and cities of its accommodation scheme on the Greek mainland. She says she hopes the agency’s goal of moving 22,000 asylum seekers into these places by the end of the year will be met.

 
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Macedonia’s main opposition party, the rightist VMRO-DPMNE, formally replaced its leader, Nikola Gruevski, on Saturday and appointed Hristijan Mickoski, a technocrat, as his successor.

Gruevski, 47, resigned this month following an election defeat last year and unrest that rocked the small Balkan country in April.

In his speech to the party’s convention on Saturday, Gruevski said that a key reason for VMRO-DPMNE’s fall from power was his refusal to yield to what he described as international and domestic pressure to accept a compromise in a dispute with Greece.

Macedonia, which won independence in 1991 from then-federal Yugoslavia, has made little progress toward European Union and NATO membership because of a long-running dispute with Greece, which claims Macedonia’s name represents a territorial claim to its province with the same name.

“We wanted a fair compromise and a name solution, but not under dictate,” Gruevski said.

Gruevski’s successor, Mickoski, 41, a relative novice in politics, became VMRO-DPMNE secretary-general earlier this year.

He served in Gruevski’s government as the general manager of ELEM, Macedonia’s state-owned power plants managing company.
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An aardvark was killed and staff members were injured in a fire Saturday at the London Zoo. Four meerkats were missing and presumed dead, zoo officials said.

More than 70 firefighters in 10 trucks took nearly three hours to put out the blaze, the cause of which wasn’t immediately known.

Eight staff members at the zoo were treated for smoke inhalation. 

“We are all naturally devastated by this, but are immensely grateful to the fire brigade, who reacted quickly to the situation to bring the fire under control,” read a statement issued by the zoo, adding that it expected to reopen Sunday.

The London Zoo, home to more than 20,000 animals according to its 2017 inventory, sits in the capital city’s iconic Regents Park and attracts 1.2 million visitors each year.

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Spectators at the home stadium of Real Madrid saw its team’s hopes to keep La Liga title fade away Saturday as Barcelona rolled to a 3-0 El Clasico victory, opening a 14-point lead over the current champions. 

Luis Suarez, Lionel Messi and Aleix Vidal each scored, while Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema missed first-half chances. 

“They did really well in the second half. The first half was terrible, in my opinion. They [Barcelona] had very little possession [of the ball],” Joe Villanueva, a Barcelona fan, told VOA. 

Barcelona’s win, however, went beyond the European soccer classic. The soccer match came two days after elections in Catalonia in which separatist parties claimed a majority of the votes. Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia and its largest city, while Madrid is Spain’s capital.

Saturday’s El Clasico was the first meeting between Madrid and Barca since the banned October referendum on Catalan independence. 

Club allegiances do not necessarily dictate political opinions. Still, Villanueva thought they would play a bigger role in the match. 

WATCH: A Barcelona Fan’s Take on the Game

“I thought the match would get ugly, especially after they were down 2-0 and they had a player down,” he said. “I thought it would get ugly, but they were composed. Both sides were composed. Usually Real Madrid gets pretty rowdy, especially when they’re losing, but they did well.”

‘An infinite stalemate’

After the political convulsions of the past three months, Catalonia and Spain are back to square one, said Xabier Barrena, a political columnist for the El Periodico newspaper.

“Catalonia is living in an infinite stalemate. There was a considerable increase in participation in the parliamentary elections this time, and despite this, the result is the same as in 2015. Both then and now, the solution must be a legitimate referendum,” Barrena said.

The most likely election outcome remains a coalition of the three pro-independence parties, but their options appear limited, Barrena said. “Any unilateral declaration [of independence] would elicit a violent response from the state,” he said. “So they will avoid that course.”

In the meantime, Barca coach Ernesto Valverde said a long stretch of the season remained. 

“The league isn’t finished. We haven’t even completed the first half of the season,” Valverde said. 

Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane acknowledged it was a defeat “that hurts.”

“Madrid never gives up, whatever happens,” he said. “It is a difficult moment because we’ve lost by three goals. I could say we don’t deserve it, but that is football.”
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