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Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Pope Francis to meet Ukraine’s Zelensky at Vatican Friday

Pope Francis to meet Ukraine’s Zelensky at Vatican Friday
Above, Pope Francis holds his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican on Oct. 9, 2024. (AP)
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Updated 09 October 2024
AFP
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Pope Francis to meet Ukraine’s Zelensky at Vatican Friday

Pope Francis to meet Ukraine’s Zelensky at Vatican Friday
  • A calendar event sent by the Vatican to the media indicated a half-hour meeting between the pontiff and Ukrainian leader
Updated 09 October 2024
AFP
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ROME: Pope Francis will meet Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday at the Vatican, officials said, while media reported the Ukrainian leader would also meet Italy’s prime minister in Rome.
A calendar event sent by the Vatican to the media indicated a half-hour meeting between the pope and Zelensky beginning at 9:30 a.m. (0730 GMT) on Friday at the Vatican.
Italian media reported that Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni would be meeting with the Ukranian president Thursday evening, although nothing has been officially confirmed.
Zelensky was in Croatia on Wednesday at a summit with Balkan leaders to seek international military support.
He had been due to attend an international meeting on UKraine at a US air base in Germany on Saturday.
But that meeting of more than 50 countries was pushed back Wednesday after President Joe Biden called off a planned state visit to Germany and Angola due to Hurrican Milton.

Topics: Russia-Ukraine Conflict Ukraine Pope Francis Volodymyr Zelensky

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Britain has had ‘diplomatic contact’ with Syria’s HTS group

A fighter poses for a picture ahead of Syria’a Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) group leader’s speech.
A fighter poses for a picture ahead of Syria’a Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) group leader’s speech.
Updated 15 December 2024
Reuters
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Britain has had ‘diplomatic contact’ with Syria’s HTS group

A fighter poses for a picture ahead of Syria’a Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) group leader’s speech.
  • “HTS remains a proscribed organization, but we can have diplomatic contact and so we do have diplomatic contact as you would expect,” Lammy said
Updated 15 December 2024
Reuters

LONDON: Britain has had diplomatic contact with the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) group that swept Syrian President Bashar Assad from power last week, British foreign minister David Lammy said on Sunday.
“HTS remains a proscribed organization, but we can have diplomatic contact and so we do have diplomatic contact as you would expect,” Lammy told broadcasters.
“Using all the channels that we have available, and those are diplomatic and, of course, intelligence-led channels, we seek to deal with HTS where we have to.”
On Saturday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States has had direct contact with HTS.

Topics: Fall of Assad Britain

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Swiss court mulls closing Assad uncle war crimes case

Rifaat Assad is accused by Swiss prosecutors of a long list of crimes, including having ordered “murders and acts of torture.”
Rifaat Assad is accused by Swiss prosecutors of a long list of crimes, including having ordered “murders and acts of torture.”
Updated 15 December 2024
AFP
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Swiss court mulls closing Assad uncle war crimes case

Rifaat Assad is accused by Swiss prosecutors of a long list of crimes, including having ordered “murders and acts of torture.”
  • His part in February 1982 massacre in Hama, which left between 10,000 and 40,000 dead, earned him the nickname of “the Butcher of Hama”
  • Tribunal said the defendant in his 80s was suffering from ailments preventing him from traveling and taking part in his trial
Updated 15 December 2024
AFP

GENEVA: Switzerland’s Federal Criminal Court is considering dropping a case charging an uncle of deposed Syrian president Bashar Assad with alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, newspapers reported on Sunday.
Rifaat Assad is accused by Swiss prosecutors of a long list of crimes, including having ordered “murders, acts of torture, inhumane treatment and illegal detentions” while an officer in the Syrian army.
His part in the notorious February 1982 massacre in the western town of Hama, which left between 10,000 and 40,000 dead, earned him the nickname of “the Butcher of Hama.”
The date of the former vice president’s trial has not been announced.
On November 29, just a few days before his nephew’s overthrow by militants, the Federal Criminal Court informed the victim plaintiffs that “it wished to close the proceedings” into Rifaat Assad, according to the Swiss Sunday newspapers Le Matin Dimanche and SonntagsZeitung.
The tribunal said that the defendant in his 80s was suffering from ailments preventing him from traveling and taking part in his trial, the papers reported.
The federal public prosecutor’s office opened the criminal proceedings in December 2013 following a report by the Swiss non-governmental organization Trial International.
Alerted by Syrians living in Geneva, the rights group traced Assad to a major Geneva hotel.
“Trial confirms the intention expressed by the court to the parties to close the case. But the formal decision has not yet been taken,” Benoit Meystre, the NGO’s legal adviser, told AFP on Sunday.
“If the case is closed, the possibility of an appeal will be examined, and it is highly likely that this decision will be contested,” Meystre said, adding that any appeal would have to be brought by the plaintiffs and not the NGO.
Swiss prosecutors opened the proceedings on the grounds of universal jurisdiction in crimes against humanity and war crimes cases.
Assad went into exile in 1984 after a failed attempt to overthrow his brother, the country’s then-ruler Hafez Assad.
He then presented himself as an opponent of Bashar Assad, traveling to Switzerland and later France.
He returned to Syria after 37 years in exile in France to escape a four-year prison sentence for money laundering and misappropriation of Syrian public funds.

Topics: Fall of Assad

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Israel says it will close Dublin embassy, citing ‘extreme anti-Israel policies’

Demonstrators in support of Palestinians stand outside the Israeli embassy in Dublin, Ireland. (File/Reuters)
Demonstrators in support of Palestinians stand outside the Israeli embassy in Dublin, Ireland. (File/Reuters)
Updated 15 December 2024
Reuters
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Israel says it will close Dublin embassy, citing ‘extreme anti-Israel policies’

Demonstrators in support of Palestinians stand outside the Israeli embassy in Dublin, Ireland. (File/Reuters)
  • Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris said the decision was deeply regrettable
  • “I utterly reject the assertion that Ireland is anti-Israel. Ireland is pro-peace, pro-human rights and pro-International law,” he said in a post on X
Updated 15 December 2024
Reuters

JERUSALEM: Israel will close its Dublin embassy due to the “extreme anti-Israel policies of the Irish government,” Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Sunday, citing its recognition of a Palestinian state and support for legal action against Israel.
Israel’s ambassador to Dublin was recalled following Ireland’s decision on a Palestinian state in May, Saar’s statement added. Last week, Dublin announced its support for South Africa’s legal action against Israel in the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing Israel of genocide.
Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris said the decision was deeply regrettable. “I utterly reject the assertion that Ireland is anti-Israel. Ireland is pro-peace, pro-human rights and pro-International law,” he said in a post on X.
“Ireland wants a two state solution and for Israel and Palestine to live in peace and security. Ireland will always speak up for human rights and international law.”
Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin said in March that while it was for the World Court to decide whether genocide is being committed, he wanted to be clear that Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack and what is happening in Gaza now “represents the blatant violation of international humanitarian law on a mass scale.”
A statement from Israel’s foreign ministry also announced the establishment of an Israeli embassy in Moldova.

Topics: War on Gaza

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Bangladesh inquiry recommends feared police unit shut over rights abuses

Bangladesh inquiry recommends feared police unit shut over rights abuses
Updated 15 December 2024
AFP
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Bangladesh inquiry recommends feared police unit shut over rights abuses

Bangladesh inquiry recommends feared police unit shut over rights abuses
  • The police unit was launched in 2004, billed as a way to provide rapid results in a country where the judicial system was slow
  • But the unit earned a grim reputation for extrajudicial killings and was accused of supporting ec-PM Hasina’s political ambitions
Updated 15 December 2024
AFP

DHAKA: A Bangladesh commission probing abuses during the rule of toppled leader Sheikh Hasina has recommended a much-feared armed police unit be disbanded, a senior inquiry member said Sunday.
Hasina, 77, fled by helicopter to neighboring India on August 5 as a student-led uprising stormed the prime minister’s palace in Dhaka.
Her government was accused of widespread human rights abuses, including the extrajudicial killing of hundreds of political opponents and the unlawful abduction and disappearance of hundreds more.
The Commission of Inquiry into Enforced Disappearances, set up by the caretaker government, said it found initial evidence that Hasina and other ex-senior officials were involved in the enforced disappearances alleged to have been carried out by the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB).
The RAB paramilitary police force was sanctioned by the United States in 2021, alongside seven of its senior officers, in response to reports of its culpability in some of the worst rights abuses committed during Hasina’s 15-year-long rule.
“RAB has never abided by the law and was seldom held accountable for its atrocities, which include enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and abductions,” Nur Khan Liton, a member of the commission, told AFP.
The commission handed its preliminary report to the leader of the interim government Muhammad Yunus late Saturday.
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), one of the country’s largest political parties, also called for RAB’s abolition.
Senior BNP leader M. Hafizuddin Ahmed told reporters that the force was too rotten to be reformed.
“When a patient suffers from gangrene, according to medical studies, the only solution is to amputate the affected organ,” he said.
The elite police unit was launched in 2004, billed as a way to provide rapid results in a country where the judicial system was notoriously slow.
But the unit earned a grim reputation for extrajudicial killings and was accused of supporting Hasina’s political ambitions by suppressing dissent through abductions and murders.

Topics: Rapid Action Battalion Bangladesh Protests former bangladesh prime minsiter sheikh haseena

German far-right leader questions NATO membership

German far-right leader questions NATO membership
Updated 15 December 2024
AFP
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German far-right leader questions NATO membership

German far-right leader questions NATO membership
  • ‘Europe has been forced to implement America’s interests. We reject that’
Updated 15 December 2024
AFP

BERLIN: The co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party on Sunday said Germany should reconsider its membership of NATO if the US-led military alliance did not consider the interests of all European countries, including Russia.
“Europe has been forced to implement America’s interests. We reject that,” the AfD’s Tino Chrupalla told German daily Welt.
“NATO is currently not a defense alliance. A defense community must accept and respect the interests of all European countries — including Russia’s interests,” Chrupalla said.
“If NATO cannot ensure that, Germany must consider to what extent this alliance is still useful for us,” he added.
The far-right AfD is polling at around 18-19 percent ahead of snap elections on February 23, following the collapse of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition government last month.
The score puts the party ahead of Scholz’s Social Democrats on 16-17 percent and behind only the conservative CDU-CSU bloc, which is polling around 31-32 percent.
The AfD has little chance of forming a government because other parties have ruled out cooperation with the far-right group.
But it could continue a streak of strong electoral showings, after a landmark win in Thuringia, one of the regions in Germany’s formerly communist east.
The far-right party has been a vocal critic of Germany’s military support for Ukraine and has argued for a swift end to the war prompted by Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
“The German government must finally get to the point of wanting to end the war,” said Chrupalla, whose colleague Alice Weidel will lead the AfD into the election as the party’s candidate for chancellor.
“Russia has won this war. Reality has caught up with those who claim to want to enable Ukraine to win the war,” he said.
The conflict in Ukraine is set to be one of the major themes of the campaign, which will culminate on the eve of the third anniversary of the invasion.
Scholz has pledged sustained support for Ukraine but has counselled prudence, as he hopes to tap into pacifist currents among voters, which are particularly strong in the east.
The chancellor has resisted calls to send long-range missiles that Kyiv could use to strike Russian territory for fear of being drawn into the conflict, and recently reinitiated direct contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Topics: Germany NATO

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