Indian police and intelligence agencies detained a freelancer for the Voice of America’s Tibetan service as he arrived in Chennai Friday (October 11) to cover the informal summit between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
A freelancer for Radio Free Asia’s Tibetan service was also detained. Both VOA and RFA are part of the U.S. Agency for Global Media.
Cyaltsen Choedak for VOA and Pema Ngudup for RFA, were held for more than 40 hours, first at the Chennai railway station, then at a police station and finally at two guesthouses before they were released.
One of Australia’s most senior government ministers has accused the Chinese Communist Party of behaving in ways that are “inconsistent” with his country’s values. Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton warned Canberra would work to counter foreign interference in Australian universities, as well as cyber espionage.
Peter Dutton’s comments are some of the most uncompromising language yet from an Australian government minister on the perceived threat posed by China.
Tensions between Canberra and Beijing have risen in recent times because of allegations of cyber attacks by China, and that it has meddled in Australia’s domestic politics. There’s also been friction over the detention of a Chinese-Australian writer in Beijing, and differences over Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea.
Australia also has concerns about Chinese interference in its universities, including allegations that students who have supported democracy protests in Hong Kong have been harassed or monitored by Chinese agents on campus.
Peter Dutton said Australia must be wary of China’s ambitions.
“My issue is with the Communist Party of China and their policies to the extent that they are inconsistent with our own values, and in a democracy like ours we encourage freedom of speech, freedom of the expression of thought, and if that is being impinged, if people are operating outside of the law then whether they are from China or from any other country we are right to call that out,” he said.
The comments prompted a stinging response from the Chinese government.
A Foreign Ministry spokesman, Geng Shuang, told a press conference that he hoped “Australia will reject the Cold War mentality and bias, and work to advance bilateral relations and mutual trust.”
The Chinese Embassy in Canberra said it rejected “Mr Dutton’s irrational accusations … which are shocking and baseless.”
Australia is a liberal, middle-ranking world power. China is its biggest trading partner by some distance, and three of the main pillars of the Australian economy, mining, tourism and education, rely heavily on demand from China.
The challenge for Australia, which has a close military alliance with the United States, is to be able to criticize and challenge China while maintaining a key trade relationship that has underpinned its recent prosperity.
Armed men stormed a mosque in the volatile north of Burkina Faso as worshippers were at prayer, killing 16 people and sending residents fleeing, security sources and locals said Saturday.
The attack on the Grand Mosque in the town of Salmossi on Friday evening underscores the difficulties faced by the country in its battle against jihadists.
One source said 13 people died at the scene and three succumbed to their injuries later. Two of the wounded are in critical condition.
“Since this morning, people have started to flee the area,” one resident from the nearby town of Gorom-Gorom said.
He said there was a “climate of panic despite military reinforcements” that were deployed after the deadly attack.
Although hit by jihadist violence, many Burkinabes oppose the presence of foreign troops — notably from former colonial ruler France — on their territory.
French President Emmanuel Macron shakes hands with Burkina Faso’s President Roch Marc Christian Kabore in Lyon, France, Oct. 9, 2019, during the meeting of international lawmakers, health leaders and people affected by HIV, Tuberculosis and malaria.
Terrorism, foreign military
On Saturday, a crowd of about 1,000 people marched in the capital Ouagadougou “to denounce terrorism and the presence of foreign military bases in Africa.”
“Terrorism has now become an ideal pretext for installing foreign military bases in our country,” said Gabin Korbeogo, one of co-organizers of the march.
“The French, American, Canadian, German and other armies have set foot in our sub-region, saying they want to fight terrorism. But despite this massive presence … the terrorist groups … are growing stronger.”
Jihadists arrive in 2015
Until 2015, the poor West African country Burkina Faso was largely spared violence that hit Mali and then Niger, its neighbors to the north.
But jihadists, some linked to Al-Qaida, others to the so-called Islamic State group, started infiltrating the north, then the east, and then endangered the southern and western borders of the landlocked country.
Combining guerrilla hit-and-run tactics with road mines and suicide bombings, the insurgents have killed nearly 600 people, according to a toll compiled by AFP.
Civil society groups put the number at more than 1,000, with attacks taking place almost daily.
Burkina’s defense and security forces are badly equipped, poorly trained and have shown themselves to be unable to put a halt to the increasing violence.
France has a force of 200 in Burkina Faso but also intervenes frequently as part of its regional Barkhane operation.
Almost 500,000 people have fled their homes because of the violence, according to the U.N. refugee agency, which has warned of a humanitarian crisis affecting 1.5 million people.
Almost 3,000 schools have closed, and the impact on an overwhelmingly rural economy is escalating, disrupting trade and markets.
Britain remains a long way from agreeing on a final Brexit deal and the next few days will be critical if it is to reach departure terms with the European Union, a Downing Street source said Saturday.
Negotiators for Britain and the EU entered intense talks over the weekend to see if they can break the Brexit impasse before a crucial summit next week and a deadline for Britain to leave the bloc Oct. 31.
News of progress in the talks sent financial markets surging Friday after Boris Johnson and his Irish counterpart Leo Varadkar identified a pathway to a deal following months of acrimony.
But on Saturday the deputy leader of the Northern Irish party that holds a key role in the talks signaled his concern about the mooted proposal and the Downing Street source said Britain remained ready to leave without a deal if needed.
“We’ve always wanted a deal,” the person said, on condition of anonymity. “It is good to see progress, but we will wait to see if this is a genuine breakthrough.
“We are a long way from a final deal and the weekend and next week remain critical to leaving with a deal on Oct. 31. We remain prepared to leave without a deal on Oct. 31,” the source said.
Ireland’s Prime Minister, Leo Varadkar, right, and Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson pose for a photograph at Thornton Manor Hotel, Oct. 10, 2019, as they met for Brexit talks.
The Sunday Times newspaper reported that Johnson, the face of Britain’s 2016 campaign to leave the EU, was now desperate to secure a deal after security chiefs warned that leaving in a disorderly manner could inflame tensions in Northern Ireland.
Ireland has proved the toughest nut to crack in the Brexit talks, specifically how to prevent the British province of Northern Ireland from becoming a backdoor into the EU’s markets without having border controls.
Ireland fears controls on the 500-km (300-mile) border with Northern Ireland would undermine the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which ended three decades of sectarian and political conflict that killed more than 3,600 people.
Johnson is likely to talk to senior EU leaders Monday to reassess the situation, the source said.
Turkey’s military said it captured a key Syrian border town under heavy bombardment Saturday in its most significant gain since an offensive against Kurdish fighters began four days ago, with no sign of relenting despite mounting international criticism.
Turkish troops entered central Ras al-Ayn, according to Turkey’s Defense Ministry and a war monitor group. The ministry tweeted: “Ras al-Ayn’s residential center has been taken under control through the successful operations in the east of Euphrates” River. It marked the biggest gain made by Turkey since the invasion began Wednesday.
The continued push by Turkey into Syria comes days after President Donald Trump pulled U.S. forces out of the area, making Turkey’s air and ground offensive possible, and said he wanted to stop getting involved with “endless wars.” Trump’s decision drew swift bipartisan criticism that he was endangering regional stability and risking the lives of Syrian Kurdish allies who brought down the Islamic State group in Syria. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces was the main U.S. ally in the fight and lost 11,000 fighters in the nearly five-year battle against IS.
Turkish troops and allied Syrian opposition fighters have made gains recently capturing several northern villages in fighting and bombardment that left dozens of people killed or wounded. The invasion also has forced nearly 100,000 people to flee their homes amid concerns that IS might take advantage of the chaos and try to rise again after its defeat in Syria earlier this year.
Redor Khalil, a Kurdish official in the Syrian Democratic Forces, speaks during a press conference in Hassakeh, Oct. 12, 2019.
US moral responsibilities
The Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, said the United States should carry out its “moral responsibilities” and close northern Syrian airspace to Turkish warplanes, but that it didn’t want the U.S. to send its soldiers “to the front lines and put their lives in danger.”
During a meeting Saturday in Cairo, the 22-member Arab League condemned what it described as “Turkey’s aggression against Syria” and warned that Ankara will be responsible for the spread of terrorism following its invasion. The league said Arab states might take some measures against Ankara. It called on the U.N. Security Council to force Turkey to stop the offensive.
The Turkish offensive was widely criticized by Syria and some Western countries, which called on Turkey to cease its military operations.
Arms exports curtailed
France’s defense and foreign ministries said Saturday that the country was halting exports of any arms to Turkey that could be used in its offensive.
Foreign Minister Heiko Maas also announced that Germany would curtail its arms exports to Turkey. Maas told the weekly Bild am Sonntag that “against the background of the Turkish military offensive in northeastern Syria, the government will not issue any new permissions for any weapons that can be used by Turkey in Syria.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday that Turkey won’t stop until the Syrian Kurdish forces withdraw at least 32 kilometers (20 miles) from the border.
People hold pro-Kurd flags and banner in Paris, Oct. 12, 2019, during a demonstration to support Kurdish militants and protest as Turkey kept up its assault on Kurdish-held border towns in northeastern Syria.
During the capture of Ras al-Ayn’s residential center, an Associated Press journalist across the border heard sporadic clashes as Turkish howitzers struck the town and Turkish jets screeched overhead. Syrian Kurdish forces appeared to be holding out in some areas of the town.
The SDF released two videos said to be from inside Ras al-Ayn, showing fighters saying that it was Saturday and they were still there.
The fighting was ongoing as the Kurdish fighters sought to reverse the Turkish advance into the city, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based war monitor.
Ras al-Ayn is one of the biggest towns along the border and is in the middle of the area where Turkey plans to set up its safe zone. The ethnically and religiously mixed town with a population of Arabs, Kurds, Armenians and Syriac Christians had been under the control of Kurdish fighters since 2013. IS members tried to enter Ras al-Ayn following their rise in Syria and Iraq in 2014 but failed.
Syrian patient Fatima al-Issa who was hit by shrapnel during Turkish bombardment of Ras al-Ayn, rests after receiving treatment at a hospital in Tal Tamr in Syria’s northeastern Hasakeh province, Oct. 11, 2019.
Most of the town’s residents have fled in recent days for fear of the invasion.
Highway targeted
Earlier Saturday, Turkish troops moved to seize control of key highways in northeastern Syria, the Turkish military and the Syrian Observatory said. Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency said that Turkey-backed Syrian opposition forces had taken control of the M-4 highway that connects the towns of Manbij and Qamishli. The SDF said that Turkish troops and their Syrian allies reached the highway briefly before being pushed back again.
Kurdish news agencies including Hawar and Rudaw said that Hevreen Khalaf, secretary general of the Future Syria Party, was killed Saturday as she was driving on the M-4 highway. Rudaw’s correspondent blamed Turkish forces for targeting Khalaf’s car, and Hawar blamed “Turkey’s mercenaries.”
The Observatory said six people, including Khalaf, were killed by Turkey-backed opposition fighters on the road that they briefly cut before withdrawing.
The Turkish military aims to clear Syrian border towns of Kurdish fighters’ presence, saying they are a national security threat. Since Wednesday, Turkish troops and Syrian opposition fighters backed by Ankara have been advancing under the cover of airstrikes and artillery shelling.
Thousands displaced
The U.N. estimated the number of displaced at 100,000 since Wednesday, saying that markets, schools and clinics also were closed. Aid agencies have warned of a humanitarian crisis, with nearly a half-million people at risk in northeastern Syria.
A civilian wounded in a mortar strike from Syria on Friday in the Turkish border town of Suruc died, Anadolu news agency reported Saturday, bringing the civilian death toll to 18 in Turkey. Turkey’s interior minister said hundreds of mortars, fired from Syria, have landed in Turkish border towns.
The Observatory said 74 Kurdish-led SDF fighters have been killed since Wednesday as well as 49 Syrian opposition fighters backed by Turkey. That’s in addition to 38 civilians on the Syrian side. It added that Turkish troops now control 23 villages in northeastern Syria.
Turkey’s defense ministry said it “neutralized” 459 Syrian Kurdish fighters. The number could not be independently verified. Four Turkish soldiers have been killed since the beginning of the offensive, including two who were killed in Syria’s northwest.
France’s leader warned Trump in a phone call that Turkey’s military action in northern Syria could lead to a resurgence of IS activity. President Emmanuel Macron “reiterated the need to make the Turkish offensive stop immediately,” his office said in a statement Saturday.
A Kurdish police force in northern Syria said a car bomb exploded early Saturday outside a prison where IS members are being held in the northeastern city of Hassakeh. It was not immediately clear if there were any serious injuries or deaths.
Kurdish fighters are holding about 10,000 IS fighters, including some 2,000 foreigners.
Firefighters have made progress containing wind-driven wildfires in the western U.S. state of California that has claimed one life, destroyed or damaged dozens of structures, and forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of people.
Los Angeles Fire Department Captain Branden Silverman said Saturday morning the blaze in Los Angeles County, named the Saddleridge fire, had been 19-percent contained overnight, thanks to slightly cooler temperatures and lighter winds. The blaze damaged or destroyed at least 31 structures, including homes.
The fire, located in the San Fernando Valley in Northwestern Los Angeles County, was only 13-percent contained on Friday, after burning more than 3,000 hectares, officials said.
Authorities ordered mandatory evacuations Saturday of some 23,000 homes in an area covering about 100,000 residents.
The cause of the Saddleridge fire has not been determined, but investigators said they were following up on a report of flames from a power line when the fire started Thursday night.
To the east of the Saddleridge fire, another blaze swept through a Riverside County mobile home park, destroying dozens of homes. Authorities said that fire, which has burned about 330 hectares, had been 25 percent contained Saturday.
Flames from a backfire, lit by firefighters to stop the Saddleridge Fire from spreading, burn a hillside in Newhall, Calif., Oct. 11, 2019
Red flag warnings remain in effect until 6 p.m. local time Saturday, even though the dry Santa Ana winds from nearby mountains that fueled the fires have died down and were expected to continue to weaken throughout Saturday.
Officials said one man died of a heart attack while speaking with firefighters who were battling the Riverside fire early Friday.
In Northern California, electricity has been restored to 98-percent of the nearly 2 million customers who had their power cut off earlier this week by Pacific Gas & Electric in an effort to prevent wildfires.
California Governor Gavin Newsom declared emergencies Friday for Los Angeles and Riverside counties because of the fires. The governor’s office said it has received a federal grant to help with firefighting costs.
More than 1,000 firefighters from numerous departments were battling the fires from the air and ground.
Human rights organizations say they are preparing for a long-lasting displacement of civilians in northeastern Syria as a result of a military operation by Turkey and its aligned Syrian militants against the U.S.-allied Syrian Democratic Forces.
The new Turkish offensive into Syria on Wednesday started after U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision Sunday to withdraw U.S. troops from the region.
As the Turkish government on Thursday said its military pushed deeper into the region in its operation, humanitarian agency Care International told VOA that approximately 90,000 people have become internally displaced since its beginning on Wednesday.
“Following the launch of a new military operation in the area, civilians in northeast Syria are at high risk,” said Fatima Azzeh, the senior regional communications manager for the Syria crisis at Care International.
“Reports from responders on the ground say civilians are already on the move and some vital services, such as medical facilities and water supplies, have been interrupted,” Azzeh said, adding that thousands more civilians are expected to leave the area in coming days.
Syrian refugees and relatives of nine-month-old baby, Mohammed Omar, killed in a mortar attack a day earlier in Akcakale near northern Syria, leaves after funeral ceremony in Akcakale on October 11, 2019.
The new wave of violence has forced several aid agencies to ask their staffs to evacuate the area with their families.
“This would cause further vulnerability and increased reliance on humanitarian aid, which the international community is not in a position to provide,” she said.
Turkish officials say their military operation, code named Operation Peace Spring, is to pursue a Kurdish armed group known as the Peoples’ Protection Units or the YPG. Turkey considers the YPG a terrorist organization — alleging that the group is linked to Kurdish separatists inside Turkey, known as the PKK.
The United States, however, considers the YPG a key ally, and it became the main local ground force to remove Islamic State (IS) from a wide range of Syrian territory, including the self-proclaimed IS capital, Raqqa.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that in addition to pursuing YPG fighters, his government in northern Syria will take charge of nearly 10,000 IS fighters who are currently held in Kurdish prisons and establish a safe zone to return millions of Syrian refugees from Turkey.
Warning to Europe
Responding to a demand by the European Union to cease the offensive, Erdogan on Thursday threatened to open Turkey’s door to allow the Syrian refugees to flood Europe.
“Hey, European Union, pull yourself together. If you try to label this operation as an occupation, it is very simple: we will open the gates and send 3.6 million refugees your way,” Erdogan said in a speech to ruling party officials in Ankara.
Kurds consider Turkey’s refugee transfer plan an attempt to change the demographic balance of the region by moving large numbers of Sunni Arab Syrians into a traditionally Kurdish heartland.
The conflict in Syria broke out in 2011 following a popular uprising against President Bashar al-Assad’s government. The United Nations estimates nearly half of Syria’s population has been displaced, with an estimated 6.6 million refugees fleeing the country.
An armored vehicle escorts a Turkish military convoy in the border town of Akcakale in Sanliurfa province, Turkey, October 12, 2019. REUTERS/Murad Sezer
Demographic shifts, displacements
The U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Syria, in a statement Thursday, said Turkey’s scale-up of the operation in northeast Syria also could cause mass displacement of vulnerable populations that already have been displaced multiple times by conflict and live in camps. It warned that the campaign could lead to insecurity and chaos, which could create circumstances for the resurgence of IS.
“The last thing Syrians need now is a new wave of violence,” the commission said.
Amnesty International told VOA that roughly 700,000 people within the region have fled war from other Syrian areas and depend on U.N. aid and assistance from other humanitarian organizations for their basic needs. Another million local residents could be gravely affected by the conflict.
“When [Islamic State] took over large swaths of Syria and sent many religious minority communities from other parts of Syria, and in addition to tens of thousands of just regular civilians who were terrified of living under ISIS, they fled into this part of Syria feeling like it was a safe area for them to be in,” said Philippe Nassif, the human rights group’s advocacy director for the Middle East and North Africa.
“So, what’s happening is with the Turkish incursion you’ve got a very large population of internally displaced people and civilians that were already living in this part of Syria, many of them Kurdish, who are now beginning to flee the currently ongoing Turkish intervention,” Nassif told VOA.
Even after Turkey’s operation, Nassif charged that a second phase of humanitarian crisis likely will unfold as the Turkish government tries to implement its so-called safe zone. “You’re going to eventually see this idea of Turkey sending a whole bunch of Syrian refugees from Turkey and resettling them into these newly captured areas.”
“Assuming that happens, they’re going to need humanitarian support and assistance as well. So, you have a second crisis in the future that will result from the current crisis that we’re experiencing right now,” he added.
Arab League foreign ministers condemned Turkey’s military incursion into northern Syria. The League’s secretary general, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, said the group is calling on the U.N. Security Council to take action against Turkey.
At a meeting Saturday in Cairo, Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit called Turkey’s military action an “invasion” and an “aggression” against an Arab state.
He said the Arab League “condemns the invasion and that the world must not accept it, either, since it contradicts international norms and international law, no matter what pretext the invader uses.”
Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Ali Hakim, who presided over the session, said the Turkish “invasion” would cause a further deterioration of the situation in Syria and a worsening of terrorism both in Syria and neighboring states, like Iraq.
He said Turkey’s action represents a dangerous escalation that will worsen the humanitarian situation and increase the suffering of the Syrian people, in addition to allowing terrorists to regroup and weakening international efforts to fight terrorist groups, especially the Islamic State terror group, which threatens both the region and world.
An explosion is seen over the Syrian town of Ras al-Ain, as seen from the Turkish border town of Ceylanpinar, Sanliurfa province, Turkey, Oct. 12, 2019.
The United Arab Emirate’s minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Ghargash, also blasted what he called “Turkey’s blatant aggression” against Syria and urged the international community to condemn it.
Ghargash said the Arab League is meeting at a time when the entire Arab nation is facing unprecedented threats and the region is facing a period of extreme danger, which requires a carefully thought out response, as some regional parties are behaving compulsively without consideration for the unity or sovereignty of a fraternal Arab state.
“Turkey’s naked military aggression on northeast Syria,” he said,”represents a threat to the sovereignty of all Arab states and exploits chaos in the country to flout all international norms and destabilize the region.”
Egyptian state TV didn’t broadcast the statement of Qatar’s foreign minister, but Arab media reported that Qatar refused to endorse the Arab League decision to condemn the Turkish military operation. Qatar and Turkey have kept close ties since Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain imposed an economic boycott against Doha in June of 2018, for what they say is its support for terrorism.
Egyptian political sociologist Said Sadek told VOA the Arab League should have taken “stronger steps like economic sanctions” to punish Turkey for its aggression. “Turkey is an imperialist regional power with a long history of massacres in the area.”
Dr. Paul Sullivan, a professor at the U.S. National Defense University, agrees with Sadek, saying, “The Turkish invasion has been condemned by most Arab states, [but] that condemnation needs to be followed up by actions to prevent bad things from happening,” such as the “release of ISIS prisoners” and “ethnic cleansing in northern Syria. Operation ‘peace spring’ is not peace,” he says, “and it will not bring springtime to Syria.”
Theodore Karasik, a Washington-based Mideast analyst, insisted that we are “witnessing a shift in the landscape in the Arab world regarding this [Turkish] military action. Arab opinion,” he argues, “is steeped in the ills of the Ottoman Empire and how Erdogan’s actions fit the description.”
Суд присяжних міста Павії поширив у п’ятницю, 11 жовтня, мотиваційну частину вироку українському солдату Віталію Марківу. 12 липня його засудили до 24 років неволі за причетність до загибелі італійського фоторепортера Андреа Роккеллі під час війни на Донбасі 5 років тому. Присяжні вважають, що солдат Національної гвардії України Віталій Марків активно сприяв умисному убивству іноземних журналістів на околиці окупованого тоді бойовиками Слов’янська.
«У засідці проти журналістів Марків брав активну участь», – мовиться у підсумковій частині вироку, текст якого містить 176 сторінок, інформує кореспондент Радіо Свобода. Судді констатують, що обвинувачуваний у той день (24 травня 2014 року) був на горі Карачун, зі своєї бойової позиції бачив керамічну фабрику Zeus Ceramica і мав гарний візуальний контроль залізниці, біля якої у рову загинули італієць-фотограф Андреа Роккеллі і росіянин Андрій Миронов.
На думку суддів, перебіг подій був таким, як розповів Віталій Марків журналістці Іларії Морані, статтю якої в газеті Corriere della Sera судді називають «зізнанням солдата та важливим елементом доказової бази обвинувачення». Як відомо, сторона захисту вважає публікацію «вільною неправдивою інтерпритацією телефонної розмови», що відбулася між Марківим та італійськими журналістами.
«Марків, виконуючи функцію керівника на бойовій позиції, навіть за відсутності будь-якого наміру збройної атаки з боку противника, запідозривши пересування журналістів у напрямку потяга, почав діяти, «стріляючи у все, що рухалося в радіусі двох кілометрів», і як виглядає, це була звичайна практика спільних воєнних дій Національної гвардії та війська (ЗСУ)», – пишуть присяжні у тексті-мотивації вироку.
Як стверджують судді, «сам обвинувачуваний підтвердив таку реконструкцію фактів, коли заявив, що навіть за відсутності фази активного протистояння і людей у формі сепаратистів, було нормальним підозріло спостерігати за цивільними як ймовірними противниками, адже вони могли надати корисну інформацію сепаратистам». Таким чином, йдеться у документі, використовуючи АК74 (автомат Калашникова) обвинувачуваний брав участь у першій стрілянині проти журналістів біля стіни фабрики Zeus Ceramica.
«Не змігши сягнути цілі (журналістів) за допомогою автомата Калашникова, він продовжував їх відстежувати через оптичний прилад зброї, інформуючи через свого командира військо («використовуючи важку артилерію») з метою влучити по таксі, щоб завадити втечі, зупинити та знищити суб’єктів (журналістів) у лісі, де вони сховалися. Потім за допомогою радіопристрою, яким володів Марків, він повідомив війську координати жертв, допомагаючи скерувати вогонь у їхньому напрямку. Внаслідок тих пострілів французький журналіст Вільям Ругелон отримав поранення в ногу, а для Роккеллі та Миронова вони стали смертельними», – так відтворили перебіг подій присяжні судді.
Суд присяжних Павії наважився стверджувати що, «Марків виконував явно незаконний наказ, який порушує положення IV Женевської конфенції 1950 року щодо захисту цивільних під час війни». Документ забороняє насильство стосовно осіб, які прямо не залучені до конфлікту, включно із журналістами, котрі висвітлюють події на війні, нагадують присяжні. У тексті вироку йдеться, що напад українських сил відбувся без будь-якої провокації або атаки з боку протилежної сторони. Натомість, вважають автори вироку, «напад (українських сил – ред.) був спрямований проти журналістів під час виконання їхнього права на збір інформації про діючий конфлікт». Адвокати нацгвардійця наполягають, що постріли лунали з боку проросійських бойовиків, а Марків, будучи у дружніх відносинах з журналістами, не міг умисно сприяти убивству іноземних репортерів.
Судді відкинули аргументи сторони захисту, вказавши що не були надані вагомі документальні докази або свідчення, які б спростовували причетність солдата до інциденту. Свідчення українських військових на процесі названі непевними, суперечливими. Описуючи у мотиваційній частині місце трагічної події, судді, як і в матеріалах досудового слідства, продовжують говорити про інцидент «за умов громадянського конфлікту в Україні, де урядові війська протистояли проросійським сепаратистам». Провідними свідками судді назвали француза Ругелона – «надійний свідок» та італійку Морані – «журналістку-професіонала». Як відомо, захисники Марківа вважають фоторепортера Ругелона «не стільки свідком, як потерпілим», а журналістку Морані такою, що «з метою розголосу значно перебільшила і перекрутила почуту від солдата інформацію».
Сторона захисту вивчає текст мотиваційної частини вироку і протягом наступних півтора місяці має час для подачі оскарження рішення суду. Італійські адвокати Віталія Марківа та українська сторона після оголошення вироку у липні заявили про намір оскаржувати рішення Павії в Апеляційному суді Мілана. Міністерство внутрішніх справ України працює над перекладом вироку і обіцяє докласти зусиль для звільнення нацгвардійця, мовиться на сторінці МВС у Фейсбук.
30-річний Віталій Марків з подвійним українсько-італійським громадянством понад два роки перебуває під вартою у міланській в’язниці. Він заперечує свою причетність до загибелі іноземних репортерів на Донбасі і за допомогою адвокатів налаштований оскаржувати рішення суду першої інстанції.
12 липня суд в італійській Павії засудив нацгвардійця Віталія Марківа до 24 років позбавлення волі за звинуваченням у причетності до загибелі італійського журналіста Андреа Роккеллі на Донбасі в 2014 році. Міністр внутрішніх справ України Арсен Аваков назвав вирок несправедливим і заявив, що він буде оскаржений.
Захист Марківа назвав вирок «політичним» і заявив про намір подати апеляцію. Згодом адвокати повідомили, що рішення апеляційного суду можна очікувати навесні 2020 року.
Читайте також: Справа Марківа в Італії: які шанси в апеляційному суді
Президент Володимир Зеленський доручив МЗС і ГПУ «докласти максимум зусиль» для повернення Марківа. …
A heavy downpour and strong winds pounded Tokyo and surrounding areas Saturday as a powerful typhoon forecast as the worst in six decades approached landfall, with streets and train stations deserted and shops shuttered.
Store shelves were bare after people stocked up on water and food. Nearby beaches had not a surfer in sight, only towering dashing waves.
Typhoon Hagibis, closing in from the Pacific, brought heavy rainfall in wide areas of Japan ahead of its landfall, including Shizuoka and Mie prefectures, southwest of Tokyo, as well as Chiba to the north, which had suffered power outages and damaged homes from last month’s typhoon.
Under gloomy skies, a tornado ripped through Chiba Saturday, overturning a car in the city of Ichihara and killing a man inside, city official Tatsuya Sakamaki said. Five people were also injured when the tornado ripped through a house. Their injuries were not life-threatening, Sakamaki said.
Men watch the Isuzu River, swollen because of heavy rain caused by Typhoon Hagibis in Ise, central Japan, in this photo taken by Kyodo, Oct. 12, 2019.
The rains caused rivers to swell, flipped anchored boats and whipped up sea waters in a dangerous surge along the coast, flooding some residential neighborhoods and leaving people to wade in ankle-deep waters. Authorities also warned of mudslides, common in mountainous Japan.
Rugby World Cup matches, concerts and other events have been canceled. Flights were grounded and train services halted. Authorities acted quickly, with warnings issued earlier this week, including urging people to stay indoors.
Some residents taped up their apartment windows in case they shattered. TV talk shows showed footage of household items like a slipper bashing through glass when hurled by winds as powerful as the approaching typhoon.
The typhoon that hit the Tokyo region in 1958 left more than 1,200 people dead and a half-million houses flooded.
About 17,000 police and military troops have been called up, standing ready for rescue operations.
A stage is weighted down with sand bags in front of a giant teddy bear wearing a replica Japanese rugby shirt as it rains, Oct. 12, 2019, ahead of Typhoon Hagibis.
Hagibis, which means “speed” in Filipino, was advancing north-northwestward with maximum sustained winds of 162 kilometers (100 miles) per hour, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. It was expected to make landfall near Tokyo later Saturday, unleashing up to 55 millimeters (20 inches) of rains and then blow out to sea eastward.
Evacuation advisories have been issued for risk areas, including Shimoda city, west of Tokyo. Dozens of evacuation centers were opening in coastal towns, and people were resting on gymnasium floors, saying they hoped their homes were still there after the storm passed.
The storm has disrupted this nation’s three-day weekend, which includes Sports Day on Monday. Qualifying for a Formula One auto race in Suzuka was pushed to Sunday. The Defense Ministry cut a three-day annual navy review to a single day on Monday.
All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines grounded most domestic and international flights scheduled Saturday at the Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya airports. Central Japan Railway Co. said it will cancel all bullet train service between Tokyo and Osaka except for several early Saturday trains connecting Nagoya and Osaka. Tokyo Disneyland was closed.
Ginza department stores and smaller shops throughout Tokyo shuttered ahead of the typhoon.
Mike Alsop, 57-year-old executive coach from England, was visiting Japan for the World Rugby tournament, but was left stranded at an abandoned Tokyo train station.
“We were hoping to watch England play against France today, disappointed that we won’t be able to but completely understand it,” he said.
Edwin Bernard, 73, is no stranger to flames that have frequently menaced his sunburned corner of Los Angeles, but they never arrived as quickly or came as close to his home before.
Fire swept down the hill across the street and spit embers over his home of 30 years, sizzling through dry grass and igniting trees and bushes. He and his wife scrambled to go, leaving behind medication, photo albums and their four cats.
“It was a whole curtain of fire,” Bernard said. “There was fire on all sides. We had to leave.”
Bernard’s home and the cats left inside survived — barely. His backyard was charred.
Bernard and his wife were among some 100,000 residents ordered out of their homes because of a wind-driven wildfire that broke out Thursday evening in the San Fernando Valley. It spread westward through tinder-dry brush in hilly subdivisions on the outskirts of the nation’s second-largest city and was only 13% contained Friday night.
Los Angeles City firefighters battle the Saddleridge fire near homes in Sylmar, Calif., Oct. 10, 2019.
Fire officials said 13 buildings were destroyed, many probably homes. Another 18 were damaged. A middle-aged man who was near the fire went into cardiac arrest and died after apparently trying to fight the fire himself, authorities said.
Those under mandatory evacuation orders packed shelters. On Friday, police allowed some to return to their homes for five minutes to gather precious items.
They won’t be allowed to return permanently until the danger had passed.
“It’s not the fire itself but the danger of wind taking an ember, blowing it someplace, and seeing entire neighborhoods overnight get lit,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said Friday.
Los Angeles Fire Chief Ralph M. Terrazas said he flew over the fire Friday and saw “hundreds, if not thousands of homes” with charred backyards where firefighters had just managed to halt the flames.
“Be patient with us,” he urged evacuees. “We want to make sure you’re safe.”
Eyed Jarjour, left, comforts a neighbor who lost her Jolette Avenue home to the Saddleridge Fire, Oct. 11, 2019, in Granada Hills, Calif.
About 450 police were deployed in the area, and Police Chief Michel Moore said there would be “no tolerance” for looters.
Smoke belching from the burning chaparral covered some neighborhoods in gray haze. Interstate 5, the main north-to-south corridor in the state, was shut down for much of the day, choking traffic until finally reopening.
The region has been on high alert as notoriously powerful Santa Ana winds brought dry desert air to a desiccated landscape that only needed a spark to erupt. Fire officials have warned that they expect more intense and devastating California wildfires due, in part, to climate change.
By late Friday, the winds had subsided but the National Weather Service still warned of extreme fire danger in some Southern California areas because of very low humidity.
The cause of the Los Angeles blaze wasn’t immediately known, though arson investigators said a witness reported seeing sparks or flames coming from a power line near where the fire is believed to have started, said Peter Sanders, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department.
Flames from a backfire, lit by firefighters to stop the Saddleridge Fire from spreading, burn a hillside in Newhall, Calif., Oct. 11, 2019. An aggressive wildfire in Southern California seared its way through dry vegetation and spread quickly.
A Sylmar man, Robert Delgado, said he saw flames under a high-voltage electrical transmission tower near his home at around the time the fire broke out.
“We had just finished praying the rosary, like we do every night” when his wife looked out a window and saw fire at the bottom of the tower, Delgado told KABC-TV.
“We immediately ran downstairs, went to the backyard, pulled out the hoses,” he said, but the wind-whipped flames moved with terrifying speed.
“There were flames and embers flying over those bushes at the back of our house and over our house,” Delgado said. “I was overwhelmed at the sight.” He called it a miracle that his home survived.
Southern California Edison said it owns the transmission tower shown on KABC-TV, but a spokeswoman would not confirm that was where the fire began. The utility said it could take a long time to determine the cause and origin of the fire.
Jonathan Stahl, 41, of Valencia, Calif., and his 91-year-old grandmother Beverly Stahl of the Sylmar area of Los Angeles, pose at the evacuation center at the Sylmar Recreation Center after the Saddleridge wildfire, Oct. 11, 2019.
Jonathan Stahl was driving home to Valencia when he saw the smoke and immediately diverted to a mobile home park in Sylmar where his grandmother and aunt live together.
The park had been nearly wiped out in 2008 when one of the city’s most destructive fires leveled 500 homes.
“Oh my God, it’s coming this way,” his aunt said when Stahl called to alert them and she looked out the window, he said.
Stahl helped his grandmother, Beverly Stahl, 91, who was in her pajamas, and his aunt to pack clothing, medication and take their two dogs. They saw flames in the distance as they drove away.
“We just packed up what we could as fast as we could,” Stahl said at an evacuation center at the Sylmar Recreation Center, massaging his grandmother’s shoulders as she sat in a wheelchair with a Red Cross blanket on her lap. “If we’d stuck around, we would have been in trouble. Real big trouble.”
The Los Angeles fire broke out hours after flaming garbage in a trash truck sparked another blaze when the driver dumped his load to keep the rig from catching fire. But the dry grass quickly ignited and powerful winds blew the flames into a mobile park in Calimesa, about 75 miles (120 kilometers) east of downtown Los Angeles.
Seventy-four buildings were destroyed and 16 others were damaged. Several residents of the park were unaccounted for.
The family of 89-year-old Lois Arvickson feared she died in the blaze that destroyed her home.
Arvickson had called her son to say she was evacuating.
“She said she’s getting her purse and she’s getting out, and the line went dead,” Don Turner said.
He said neighbors saw his mother in her garage as flames approached. They later saw the garage on fire. Her car was still parked in the driveway.
Jane Fonda was arrested at the U.S. Capitol Friday while peacefully protesting climate change.
The actress and activist was handcuffed on the east side steps and escorted into a police vehicle. Video of the arrest circulated online.
Fonda was one of 16 people arrested for unlawfully protesting and was charged with “crowding, obstructing or incommoding.” She was released hours later.
On Thursday, the actress vowed to join Friday protests at the Capitol “inspired and emboldened by the incredible movement our youth have created.”
Ira Arlook, of the group Fire Drill Fridays, confirmed that Fonda was arrested at the inaugural demonstration Friday.
Before her arrest, Fonda in a speech called climate change “a collective crisis that demands collective action now.”
VOA Persian’s Ali Javanmardi contributed to this report from Irbil.
Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces say Turkey’s three-day-old offensive in northern Syria aimed at clearing a border zone of Kurdish forces has displaced more than 10,000 people from their homes.
SDF spokesman Mustafa Bali provided the estimate of displaced people in a Friday interview with VOA Persian from his base in the northern Syrian town of Qamishli, adjacent to the Turkish border.
The U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) gave a much higher estimate of 100,000 people having fled their homes by Friday, with most seeking shelter in the northern Syrian towns of Al-Hasakah and Tal Tamer.
Displaced Syrians sit in the back of a pickup truck as Arab and Kurdish civilians flee amid Turkey’s military assault on Kurdish-controlled areas in northeastern Syria, Oct. 11, 2019, in the Syrian border town of Tal Abyad.
“The Turkish offensive is not aimed only at the Kurds,” Bali said. “It is against all Syrian groups in the region, including Christians and Arab Muslims.” He said Turkish bombardments had cut off water supplies in several Syrian towns near the Turkish border. OCHA said a water station in Al-Hasakah servicing about 400,000 people was out of action.
Buffer zone sought
Ankara launched the cross-border operation on Wednesday, saying it wanted to clear a buffer zone in northern Syria of Syrian Kurdish forces, whom it sees as terrorist allies of Kurdish separatists in Turkey.
Turkey reported its first military fatality three days into its incursion into Syria. The defense ministry said three other soldiers were wounded, without giving details. Civilian casualties also were reported in the Turkish-Syrian border region.
NATO urged Turkey, an alliance member, to exercise restraint.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg acknowledged Turkey’s legitimate security concerns about the Syrian Kurdish fighters but warned that the offensive could “jeopardize” progress made against the Islamic State terror group that previously held territory in northern Syria.
Turkey expects NATO support
Stoltenberg spoke at a news conference in Istanbul with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu. Cavusoglu said Turkey expected solidarity from NATO against the threats it faces.
Explosions were reported in the northern Syrian border towns of Ras al-Ayn and Tal Abyad on Friday as the Turkish military offensive continued.
“I am very concerned by reports of civilian casualties on both sides of the border, and of large numbers of people moving inside Syria in the hope of avoiding the fighting,” said Mark Lowcock, U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator. He made the comments in a statement published Friday, the second day of a two-day visit to Ankara and the Turkish-Syrian border.
FILE – Mark Lowcock, U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, is pictured in Berlin, Sept. 3, 2018.
“I reiterate what the secretary-general of the United Nations has said: that we urge all parties to exercise restraint, to act in line with their obligations under the U.N. charter and international humanitarian law, to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria, and in particular to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure,” Lowcock said.
Speaking to VOA Persian, SDF spokesman Bali said people in northern Syria were “frustrated and disappointed” that President Donald Trump withdrew dozens of U.S. troops that had been stationed in northern Syria earlier this week, shortly before Turkey launched the offensive. The troops were part of a U.S. military deployment that has partnered with the SDF in the fight against IS.
“The United States didn’t stop the Turks from doing this offensive,” Bali said.
Trump has said he pulled out the U.S. troops because they had defeated IS and he did not want them to be caught up in an offensive that Ankara long had threatened to carry out against Syrian Kurdish forces. His administration has strongly criticized the Turkish offensive and denied green-lighting it.
The lights were back on Friday for many of the nearly 2 million Northern California residents who lost electricity when the state’s largest utility switched it off this week in an effort to prevent wildfires, as the first death linked to the outages was reported — a man who relied on oxygen.
The threat of widespread outages loomed in Southern California after the winds moved to the Los Angeles area, where a wildfire fueled by strong Santa Ana winds prompted officials to order the evacuation of 100,000 people from their homes in the foothills of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County.
In that fire, one man went into cardiac arrest and died at the scene.
Pacific Gas & Electric Co. restored power in Northern California after workers inspected power lines to make sure it was safe to do so. The winds had increased the possibility of transmission lines toppling to the ground and starting wildfires.
The utility said 543,000 Northern California businesses and residences got their power back — but that nearly 195,000 customers were still in the dark. More than half of those who lost power in the San Francisco Bay Area had it again on Friday. The city itself was not subject to the preventive outages. Experts have said there are between two and three people for every electrical customer.
El Dorado County officials on Friday said a man dependent on oxygen died about 12 minutes after PG&E cut off power this week. Marie Aldea of Pollock Pines said her 67-year-old father Robert Mardis Sr. was asleep when the electricity went out around 3:30 a.m. Wednesday and likely couldn’t wake up in time to get his back up machine, which ran on battery.
“We were all asleep, we heard my mom scream. She was crying,” she told KTXL-TV in Sacramento . “My dad went down in her arms, he was going for this oxygen machine.”
Aldea said her father’s health was poor, but she doesn’t understand why the utility turned off the power.
“No winds at all. And because of that, my father is gone,” she said.
PG&E spokesman Jeff Smith said the utility has not been able to confirm the report.
“It’s devastating beyond words,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom. “Losing a family member is horrific and to the extent this was the reason why I hope that is investigated and I hope those responsible are held to account.”
The death was first reported by the Mountain Democrat in Placerville.
Some people in the largely rural Butte, Plumas and Yuba counties and in Northern California’s wine country counties were in their third day without electricity.
Butte County is where a fire started by PG&E equipment last year decimated the town of Paradise and killed 85 people. In Napa and Sonoma counties north of San Francisco, the outages began on the two-year anniversary of deadly wildfires that killed 44 and destroyed thousands of homes.
PG&E said in a statement that employees located 11 spots where parts of its systems were damaged during the strong winds, but Smith said he could not provide damage details. That information will be in a state-mandated report the utility must give regulators within 10 business days after the outage ends.
PG&E faced hostility and second-guessing over the shut-offs, which prompted runs on supplies like coolers and generators and forced institutions to shut down.
Ryan Fisher, a partner in consumer goods and retail practice at global consultancy A.T. Kearney estimated $100 million in $200 million in fresh food was likely lost because of the outages along with $30 million a day in consumer spending.
PG&E cast the blackouts as a matter of public safety to prevent the kind of blazes that have killed scores of people over the past couple of years, destroyed thousands of homes, and ran up tens of billions of dollars in claims that drove the company into bankruptcy.
The utility suggested it was already seeing the wisdom of its decision borne out as gusts topping 77 mph (122 kph) raked some hilltops where wildfire risk was extremely high.
“We have found multiple cases of damage or hazards” caused by heavy winds, including fallen branches into overhead lines, said Sumeet Singh, a vice president for the utility.
Utility CEO Bill Johnson promised if future wind events require similar shut-offs, the utility will “do better” at communicating with customers. It’s unacceptable that its website crashed, maps were inconsistent and call centers were overloaded, Johnson said.
The United States is finding itself bogged down in northeastern Syria, caught in the middle of an increasingly dangerous fight between two key allies — Turkey and the Syrian Kurds — with neither side giving any sign it will back down.
Further complicating matters, U.S. military and intelligence officials say they see indications that the Islamic State terror group, also known as ISIS or Daesh, is finding ways to take advantage of the chaos.
U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Friday became the latest senior U.S. official to voice his disapproval, decrying Turkey’s military incursion during a hastily scheduled news conference at the Pentagon.
U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper addresses reporters at the Pentagon in Arlington, Va., Oct. 11, 2019.
“We oppose and are greatly disappointed by Turkey’s decision to launch a unilateral military incursion into northern Syria,” he said, describing the decision as “impulsive.”
“This operation puts our SDF [Syrian Democratic Forces] partners in harm’s way,” he said. “It risks the security of ISIS prison camps and will further destabilize the region.”
Turkish operation
U.S. military officials said the Turkish incursion, named Operation Peace Spring by Ankara, has so far encompassed a 125-kilometer stretch along the Turkish-Syrian border, from Tal Abyad to Ras al-Ayn, both Syrian cities.
“It’s been relatively limited in terms of ground forces,” Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters Friday, noting the Turkish military has been relying on several commando units and fighters with the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army.
U.S. Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley addresses reporters at the Pentagon in Arlington, Va., Oct. 11, 2019.
Officials with the mainly Kurdish SDF said Turkey was also pounding their positions with artillery, warplanes and armed drones, adding there were no signs Turkish forces would ease off anytime soon, a view shared by the Pentagon.
“I have no indication that they are willing to stop,” Esper said, noting he had emphasized to his Turkish counterpart “the damage this is doing.”
Turkish officials said their goal was to create a 30-kilometer-wide zone along the border to protect Turkey from the Kurdish forces, which they say have long-standing ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Both Turkey and the U.S. see the PKK as a terror group, though U.S. and Western officials say the Kurdish militias in Syria have been an effective and steadfast partner in the fight against Islamic State.
“We are not abandoning our Kurdish partner forces,” Esper said.
The U.S. announced Friday that it was drafting “very significant” new sanctions to pressure Turkey to ratchet down its operations.
“We can shut down the Turkish economy if we need to,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin warned.
Staying the course
Turkey seemed intent on staying the course, however.
The Turkish operation “will not stop … no matter what anyone says,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.
Separately, the Turkish ambassador to the U.S., Serdar Kılıç, said Friday, “The path forward is clear.”
FILE – Turkish Ambassador to the United States Serdar Kilic speaks to the Conference on U.S.-Turkey Relations in Washington, May 22, 2017.
“We are going to clear YPG-PYD elements from that region,” he said, using acronyms for the Kurdish militias. “We gave unreserved support to the United States in its fight against terrorism. We do not expect less.”
Kılıç also promised Turkey would “pay utmost attention in order to avoid collateral damage and civilian casualties.”
Senior U.S. officials said that despite such guarantees, U.S. President Donald Trump had ordered them to negotiate a settlement between Turkey, a NATO ally, and the Kurds. But Turkish officials seemed to dismiss such moves Friday, emphasizing the government does not negotiate with those they see as terrorists.
Speaking by phone through an interpreter, from near the front lines, the top Kurdish military commander described the situation as frustrating and disappointing.
“We are now preparing ourselves for a long military operation that might take more than a year,” SDF General Mazloum Abdi said Friday.
“They want to attack all the Kurdish towns. … They want to destroy all of our area,” he said, adding that in addition to meeting with top U.S military officials earlier in the week, he was taking his case directly to the White House with a letter to Trump.
“I ask him to mediate between us and Turkey, not through war but through dialogue and discussion,” Abdi said.
“We want them [the Americans] just to impose a no-fly zone,” Abdi added. “President Trump is capable of doing this.”
US, SDF forces
For now, U.S. military officials said U.S. forces in northeast Syria remained “co-located” with the SDF, with the exception of “two small outposts” in the area from Tal Abyad to Ras al-Ayn, as part of the fight against Islamic State.
A U.S. commander on the ground, 30 kilometers south of Tal Abyad, also told VOA’s Kurdish service U.S. forces were staying in the area to make sure Turkey’s incursion did not go too far.
“We are still conducting operations,” Milley said at the Pentagon. “Obviously, this incursion that was initiated by the Turks has had some effect.”
Turkish operations inside Syria also appeared to be the cause of a close call for U.S. troops in the town of Kobani, where artillery landed near their position, the Pentagon said in a statement.
Navy Captain Brook DeWalt, director of Defense Press Operations, said in a statement that the explosion occurred “in an area known by the Turks to have U.S. forces present.”
Turkey denied intentionally firing on the U.S. forces, and a U.S. official told VOA that no one was hurt in the explosion.
“There are no indications this was intentional,” the official added without saying who was responsible.
DeWalt said, “U.S. forces have not withdrawn from Kobani.”
Only SDF officials raised additional concerns, accusing Turkey of bombing the abandoned American outposts in Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ayn.
SDF-run prisons
More worrisome, they said, is Turkey’s willingness to target SDF-run prisons, which are home to 9,000 to 12,500 IS fighters captured by Kurdish troops during the U.S.-led campaign to roll back the terror group’s self-declared caliphate.
The SDF said Friday that at least two such prisons had been targeted by Turkish artillery and that the attack on a prison in the city of Qamishli allowed five prisoners to escape.
The SDF’s Abdi said none of the escapees had been recaptured, and that because of Turkey’s actions, the SDF could no longer make the prisons a top priority.
“If they [Turkey] don’t stop the war, our soldiers are going to have to leave,” Abdi said of the troops he had assigned to guard the prisons. He added that some of those troops had already been pulled to fight on the front lines.
“All of these people are going to go to protect their villages, their towns, their families,” he added.
Separately, IS claimed responsibility Friday for a deadly car bomb in Qamishli.
Top U.S. officials, including Trump, have said Turkey would be responsible for any IS prisoners in areas Turkish troops entered.
But there have been no discussions about how such a transfer of control would take place. And the SDF was refusing to cooperate.
“We will never, ever give these terrorists to Turkey,” Abdi said, adding the SDF would take its chances by releasing the IS prisoners if necessary.
“Everybody is attacking us,” he said. “They can attack us, as well.”
Editor’s note: Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was named Friday as this year’s winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. In late May, he gave his first interview to a Western news organization when he spoke to the Voice of America’s Horn of Africa service reporter Eskinder Firew, in Addis Ababa, in Amharic. These highlights from their conversation have been edited for brevity and clarity.
For the past year, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has led Ethiopia through dramatic changes. Entrenched ethnic tensions and complex regional conflicts have posed ongoing challenges to the young leader’s reform agenda, but he remains resolute in his desire to make the most of his time in office. Abiy spoke to VOA’s Eskinder Firew about Ethiopia’s relationship with neighbor Eritrea, judicial reforms and the imprint he hopes to leave.
Eskinder Firew: On the occasion of your first anniversary as prime minister, you said, “I am only planning to elevate Ethiopia to high standards, awaken the public and lift up a country that is hanging its head. I don’t have any other ill intentions other than that.” What did you mean by that?
Abiy Ahmed: I don’t believe that it’s proper to stay in power for long periods of time. And as long as I have power, I believe that I should use that to change people’s lives. But within my efforts working to bring change, there may be errors — but all of my intention and action is aimed at elevating Ethiopia.
My agenda is not to use certain groups. To attack certain groups. Or to push specific groups or oppress people. What I am working on is work that elevates Ethiopians. That’s what I want, and that is what I do.
I can confidently say that I will not be involved in killing people or benefiting by illegal means by taking away from other people’s pockets as long as I am in a position of leadership.
EF: In your message to the government and people of Eritrea on the occasion of Eritrea’s Independence Day, you expressed Ethiopia’s readiness to remain committed to jointly addressing all outstanding issues the countries face. What are these “outstanding issues”?
AA: If we take the problem between Somalia and Kenya, we want Eritrea and South Sudan, along with Ethiopia, to help one another and provide support to solve these issues. We know that any problem between Somalia and Kenya can spill over toward us. Because of this, we would like to work together to solve it.
There is a wide-ranging issue as it relates to South Sudan. We don’t think that Ethiopia alone can solve the problem, and the same when it comes to the problem between us and Eritrea.
And there are also problems between Eritrea and other countries, too. So this is a region that has a lot of problems. But additionally, this is also a region that wants to move in the direction of integration.
EF: The border closing between the two countries (Eritrea and Ethiopia) has continued until today. What is the situation currently?
AA: When the peace process started between the two sides, we saw the borders were widely opened on both sides. We can say that people were moving to and from — not like foreign countries, but movement similar to what happens within a country. There weren’t strict controls. And many people came from there to here, and from here to there. But that was not the only thing. Ethiopian opposition members who were based in Eritrea returned to Ethiopia, and Eritrean opposition members based in Ethiopia returned to Eritrea.
There needs to be a system where there is control and a custom-check system. And we need that capacity so that it would be possible to know what people are bringing in and out. There is a concern that if we leave the borders opened uncontrolled, that it would be difficult to prevent problems. We want to ensure that, if people are going from Ethiopia to Eritrea or from Eritrea to Ethiopia, it has to be for peace, development and tourism.
EF: Regarding change in Ethiopia and legal reforms, some people say that, if the measures taken are enough, we would see the results. But because the measures taken aren’t enough, we see continuation of some things. What’s your response?
AA: Everyone should get equal treatment in the face of the law. It should never be used as a tool for revenge. When we respect the rule of law, it should be in accordance to that. So, when a government takes action, there are some who say that this decision was made by someone from my ethnic group or my community. But unless this thinking is gone or is depleted, it threatens the possibility of protecting the rule of law.
Within just this past year, there are so many people that could be jailed or face detention. Thousands are in prison charged with national security, corruption and displacement, etc. There is no need to put so many people in such a situation, because we want to reduce crime and not add prisoners.
But we still have people undergoing these legal processes through the federal and regional levels. But this is not because we are not taking action, it is because we are in the process of focusing on clamping down on crimes that are serious. On the other hand, if we don’t think that the law doesn’t apply to all equally, we can’t have a sustainable future.
Labor rights advocates are warning that an Oct. 1 U.S. ban on imports from a Malaysian rubber glove maker over evidence of forced labor won’t be the country’s last if employers fail to act quickly to mend conditions for long-suffering migrant workers.
Washington announced the ban on the Malaysian firm WRP Asia Pacific along with products from four other countries because of evidence that they were being made with forced labor. Other companies and commodities include a Chinese apparel maker and gems from Zimbabwe’s Marange Diamond Fields.
The importers hit with the U.S. “withhold release orders” can either re-export the shipments that have arrived or prove that they were not made with forced labor to get them through customs.
“Our message here is clear,” Brenda Smith, executive assistant commissioner in U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Trade, told reporters in Washington.
“If you are a trading partner that does not abide by and uphold your commitments to end child or forced labor, the U.S. will do what it takes to protect vulnerable workers from exploitation, safeguard American jobs and create a fair and level playing field for companies and countries that do play by the rules.”
Andy Hall, a migrant worker rights specialist, told VOA that forced labor remains “systemic” throughout Malaysia’s manufacturing sector. He said he helped with the U.S. probe of WRP and was told by U.S. authorities that several more Malaysian companies in the rubber glove industry and others, more than a dozen in all, were under investigation for possible withhold release orders.
“They’re investigating so many cases in Malaysia, and the pressure is on,” he said.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection told VOA it would respond to a request to confirm that it was investigating other companies in Malaysia but failed to do so by the time of publication.
Drawing on a large natural rubber industry, Malaysia has become the world’s top supplier of medical rubber gloves, meeting more than half of global demand, according to the Malaysian Rubber Export Promotion Council. The Malaysian Rubber Glove Manufacturers Association (MARGMA) says 65% of what its members make heads to the U.S.
WRP alone exported $79.5 million worth of gloves to the U.S. last year. It is the first company in Southeast Asia to face a withhold release order.
Like much of its manufacturing sector, Malaysia’s rubber glove industry draws heavily on workers from poorer neighboring countries willing to work for lower wages than most locals. The government claims the country hosts 1.7 million such workers, but the International Labor Organization says the true figure, including many in the country illegally, may reach 4 million — nearly a third of Malaysia’s workforce.
Reports of human trafficking and labor abuse among Malaysia’s migrant workers have been rife for years. The Guardian newspaper reported on forced labor-tainted rubber gloves made by WRP and another leading local manufacturer, Top Glove, filling the stockrooms of British public hospitals late last year.
Both companies have denied the allegations.
Hall said some factories have made improvements, returning confiscated passports to migrant workers and abiding by the legal limit on overtime hours. At the same time, the labor rights advocate said he has seen few if any curbs on debt bondage, through which migrants take on crippling loans to land a job — working through agencies, recruiters or others — and become all but enslaved to their employers to pay them off. He said workers from Bangladesh have been hit hardest, paying up to $5,000 for a job in Malaysia and sometimes committing suicide under the pressure.
Hall said the import ban on WRP was meant to put the rest of the industry on notice.
“What WRP will find now is when they negotiate with U.S. authorities to try to lift the ban, the U.S. authorities will be saying to them, ‘But all these workers are in debt bondage, and so the only way that you can get them out of debt bondage and hence out of forced labor is to pay back the money.’ And so once WRP realized that, the message will start going through the industry,” he said.
K. Veeriah, a secretary division secretary for the Malaysian Trade Union Congress in Malaysia’s Penang state, a hub for electronics manufacturers, agreed that debt bondage was still common in factories and that more local companies were at risk of having their exports to the U.S. blocked.
“If they don’t mend their ways, they continue on with this scheme of hiring employees who have to pay huge amounts of money to be recruited and then come here and be caught in this whole vicious circle of debt … I think more employers may have to face the same possibility of a ban,” he said.
WRP and Malaysia’s Human Resources Ministry did not reply to multiple requests for an interview.
In the wake of the U.S. ban, however, Human Resources Minister Murugeson Kulasegaran has proposed adding a chapter on forced labor to Malaysia’s Employment Act to better protect workers, and offered glove makers the government’s help in carrying out social compliance audits to international standards, according to local media.
In a statement reacting to the ban, MARGMA said it took international standards “very seriously” and had a plan to meet them, including a compliance committee and seminars for exporters.
French carmaker Renault dismissed its chief executive officer on Friday, overhauling its leadership once again after the jailing of its previous chairman and CEO.
It came days after Nissan, with which Renault shares a deep alliance, named a new CEO, indicating the two companies were intent on cleaning house after a scandal over former chief Carlos Ghosn rattled their upper ranks.
The decision by the board to dismiss Thierry Bollore was effective immediately.
Bollore replaced Ghosn after the former CEO was jailed in Tokyo in last November on charges of falsifying financial reports in under-reporting compensation and breach of trust. Ghosn, who led the Nissan-Renault alliance, is currently awaiting trial and denies wrongdoing.
The company said Bollore will be replaced on an interim basis by current Chief Financial Officer Clotilde Delbos.
Chairman Jean-Dominique Senard will become president during the interim period.
Renault owns 43% of Nissan but their alliance came under strain after Ghosn’s jailing. Renault considered a merger offer from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles that would have created the world’s third-largest automaker, but the talks fell apart due to concern over Nissan’s role.
Міністр юстиції Денис Малюська розповів Радіо Свобода про роботу відомства над спрощенням оформлення документів для жителів анексованого Криму та непідконтрольних Києву районів Донецької та Луганської областей.
«Ми зараз плануємо реформувати систему, яка спростила б життя жителям з окупованих територій. Це стосується Криму, Донецька, Луганська. У них надзвичайно складна ситуація з реєстрацією актів цивільного стану. І це точно буде спрощено. Ми зараз обговорюємо концепт і законопроєкт буде», – сказав він.
Малюська уточнив, що робота Мін’юсту над розробкою цього механізму триватиме два-три місяці.
Читайте також: Зеленський заявив, що «буде розбиратися» із затриманням активіста Приходька в Криму
10 жовтня під час пресмарафону президент України Володимир Зеленський заявив, що Київ повинен розбудовувати інфраструктуру на адмінкордоні з анексованим Кримом, в тому числі облаштувати пункт перетину.
Потім він сам звернувся до журналістки проєкту Радіо Свобода Крим.Реалії з питанням про ймовірні заходи для посилення зв’язків із анексованим півостровом. За даними Крим.Реалії, в мешканців Криму є запит на спрощення оформлення документів та отримання медичної допомоги на материковій Україні.
Повне інтерв’ю з Денисом Малюською вийде на YouTube-каналі та сайті Радіо Свобода о 15:30 11 жовтня. …
Норвезький Нобелівський комітет присудив щорічну премію миру прем’єр-міністру Ефіопії Абійю Ахмеду. Про таке рішення повідомила представниця комітету 11 жовтня в Осло.
Вона додала, що Ахмед відзначений за «зусиля в досягненні миру та міжнародної співпраці, а зокрема за рішучу ініціативу у вирішенні прикордонного конфлікту з сусідньою Еритреєю». Крім того, комітет відзначив роботу Ахмеда задля досягнення миру в регіонах Східної і Південно-східної Африки загалом.
«Коли Абе Ахмед став прем’єр-міністром у квітні 2018-го, він дав зрозуміти, що хоче продовжити мирні переговори з Еритреєю. У тісній співпраці з президентом Еритреї Абі Ахмед швидко розробив принципи мирної угоди, яка припинила тривале ,безвихідне становище безх миру та оголошеної війни між двома країнами», – зазначили в комітеті.
Представниця комітету відзначила також позитивні зміни всередині Ефіопії внаслідок реформ, запроваджених Ахмедом.
Президент США Дональд Трамп у вересні 2019 року заявив, що мав би отримати Нобелівську премію «за багато речей», які він зробив, але не отримав, тому що її не присуджують чесно.
У 2018 році Нобелівську премію миру отримали лікар із Конго Дені Муквеге та іракська правозахисниця Надія Мурад за протидію сексуальному насильству під час війни.
Більшість Нобелівських премій, окрім літературної, вручаються за наукові відкриття: в медицині, фізиці, та хімії. Але, крім науки, Нобель цікавився пацифістським рухом і заповідав щороку вручати засновану ним премію «особі, яка доклалася найбільше або найкраще до справи братерства між народами, скасування чи зниження чисельності регулярних армій та проведення чи промоції мирних з’їздів». …
Two rockets struck an Iranian tanker traveling through the Red Sea off the coast of Saudi Arabia on Friday, Iranian officials said, the latest incident in the region amid months of heightened tensions between Tehran and the U.S.
There was no word from Saudi Arabia on the reported attack, and Saudi officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Iranian state television said the explosion damaged two storerooms aboard the unnamed oil tanker and caused an oil leak into the Red Sea near the Saudi port city of Jiddah.
The state-run IRNA news agency, quoting Iran’s National Iranian Tanker Co., identified the stricken vessel as the Sabity. That vessel last turned on its tracking devices in August near the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas.
US 5th Fleet ‘aware’
Lt. Pete Pagano, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet overseeing the Mideast, said authorities there were “aware of reports of this incident,” but declined to comment further.
The reported attack comes after the U.S. has alleged that in past months Iran attacked oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz, at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, something denied by Tehran.
Friday’s incident could push tensions between Iran and the U.S. even higher, more than a year after President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the nuclear deal and imposed sanctions now crushing Iran’s economy.
The mysterious attacks on oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz, Iran shooting down a U.S. military surveillance drone and other incidents across the wider Middle East followed Trump’s decision.
The latest assault saw Saudi Arabia’s vital oil industry come under a drone-and-cruise-missile attack, halving the kingdom’s output. The U.S. has blamed Iran for the attack, something denied by Tehran. Yemen’s Houthi rebels, whom the kingdom is fighting in a yearslong war, claimed that assault, though analysts say the missiles used in the attack wouldn’t have the range to reach the sites from Yemen.
U.S. President Donald Trump says the U.S. mission of defeating Islamic State in Syria is accomplished and that he plans to keep Turkey in line through economy and not military power. Trump told reporters Thursday that there are no U.S. combat forces in Syria and he does not think Americans would want to send thousands of troops to fight there. Turkey’s assault on Kurdish-held villages in northern Syria has sparked an exodus of civilians from their homes and is threatening to exacerbate a humanitarian crisis in the region. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
Antigovernment protests and unrest in Hong Kong continues after nearly four months. Among those affected by the turmoil are about 400,000 foreign domestic workers, mostly women from Indonesia and the Philippines. VOA’s Patsy Widakuswara brings this report from Hong Kong.
Sudan’s ruling council has appointed the country’s first woman chief justice. The appointment is seen as another step forward for female representation in the new transitional government.
The Sovereign Council has officially confirmed the pick of Neemat Abdullah as chief justice of the country’s judiciary, a first in Sudan and the entire Arab world.
Many in Sudan see the appointment as a major step forward for Sudanese women.
Researcher and politican Nahid Jabrallah, the founder of the Sima center for children, said the appointment of Judge Neemat Abdullah is a victory for Sudanese women and very symbolic of Sudanese women’s participation in the 30-year fight [against Bashir]. It also shows a commitment to women and women’s issues.
Abdullah was initially appointed chief justice soon after military leaders and the opposition signed a power-sharing agreement in August. She was quickly replaced, only to be re-appointed after huge street protests.
The demonstrators demanded an unbiased judiciary, which they think Abdullah can provide based on her background.
She has been a judge in the High Court for years, and has never been a part of a political party, unlike most judges at her level, the majority of whom were loyalists to ousted president Omar al-Bashir.
At the recent U.N. General Assembly, Sudanese Prime Minister Abdullah Amok praised women’s role in the protests that toppled Bashir and ensured there would be civilian representation in the transitional government.
Asma Mohamed, Sudan’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and the first female to hold the position, speaks to press in Juba, South Sudan, Sept. 12, 2019.
Four women have been appointed to cabinet positions in the new government, including the country’s first female minister of foreign affairs, Asma Mohamed Abdalla.
Former president Bashir is now on trial for money corruption charges, but many Sudanese believe there will be no real punishment for him or his allies unless Sudan’s judiciary is completely restructured.
The Swedish Academy’s decision to bestow the 2018 Nobel Prize in literature on Polish author Olga Tokarczuk has given a rare morale boost to liberal Poles only three days before a national election that is likely to be won by the country’s right-wing populist party.
Tokarczuk, 57, is a literary celebrity in Poland, whose reputation has risen fast in the English-speaking world, particularly after she won the Man Booker International prize in 2018 for her novel “Flights.” She won the Nobel for what the prize committee said was “a narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life.”
She has been criticized by Polish conservatives _ and received death threats _ for criticizing aspects of the country’s past, including its episodes of anti-Semitism. Some of her works have celebrated the rich ethnic heritage of Poland, which was a cultural and religious melting pot before the Nazi German genocide during World War II and the postwar resettlement of ethnic populations.
Her very appearance, with a dreadlock style known as a “plica Polonica” or Polish tangle, which has roots in Polish history, makes her stand out as a progressive icon as the country’s leadership seeks to put its conservative mark on the nation.
She was photographed recently at a gay pride parade in her hometown of Wroclaw holding small rainbow flags at a time when the ruling Law and Justice party has been depicting the gay rights movement as a mortal threat to Poland’s culture.
Just this week, Law and Justice leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski lashed out during a campaign stop at filmmakers and other cultural elites who he claims have tried to “destroy Poland’s reputation” with their explorations of Polish crimes, including the participation of some in killing Jews during the war. He said under his party, cultural elites will be “no longer working for our enemies.”
“Those who work (for the enemy) are being stigmatized and will be stigmatized further,” Kaczynski said.
Those remarks sparked sharp criticism by some opposition politicians, while others found poetic justice in the world’s most prestigious literary award going to Tokarczuk.
“Olga Tokarczuk is an outstanding representative of the elites hated by Kaczynski,’” said Tomasz Lis, the editor of Newsweek Polska.
On Thursday, however, the country’s conservative authorities had only words of praise for Tokarczurk, with Polish President Andrzej Duda calling it a “great day for Polish literature.”
Culture Minister Piotr Glinski, who said recently that he had tried to read her books but just couldn’t finish them, said he would try harder now. And he was happy to claim her accomplishment as one for the Polish nation.
“A Nobel Prize is a clear sign that Polish culture is well appreciated in the world,” Glinski tweeted. “Congratulations!”
European Union leader Donald Tusk, a former Polish prime minister who is also a critic of the current government, said on Twitter: “What joy and pride!”
Speaking Thursday before readers in Bielefeld, Germany, Tokarczuk described her surprise at winning, and had a message for people back in Poland: ‘let’s vote in a right way for democracy,” she said.
Law and Justice is leading opinion polls ahead of the country’s parliamentary election on Sunday, its popularity boosted by generous state spending and an assertive Poland-first foreign policy.
Two Nobel Prizes in literature, one for 2019 and one for last year, were announced Thursday after the 2018 literature award was postponed following sex abuse allegations that had rocked the Swedish Academy. The recipient of this year’s Nobel award for literature was Austrian writer Peter Handke.
