PARIS — France, Spain and England will implement tougher COVID-19 measures for passengers arriving from China, authorities said Friday.
France’s government is requiring negative tests, and is urging French citizens to avoid nonessential travel to China. France is also reintroducing mask requirements on flights from China to France.
French health authorities will carry out random PCR tests at airports on passengers arriving from China to identify potential new coronavirus variants. The new rules take effect on Sunday, but officials said it would be a few days before they are fully in place.
The U.K. government announced that anyone traveling to England on direct flights from China would be required to take a pre-departure test from Jan. 5.
Health Secretary Steve Barclay said that the U.K. was taking a “balanced and precautionary approach.” He described the measures as “temporary” while officials assess COVID-19 statistics.
France and Spain said they would continue to push for a Europe-wide policy.
France’s hospitals have struggled in recent weeks with a large number of patients because of three concurrent outbreaks: the seasonal flu, a wave of bronchitis cases and COVID-19.
Earlier, Spain’s government said it would require all air passengers coming from China to have negative tests or proof of vaccination.
Health Minister Carolina Darías told reporters that Spain would be pushing for similar measures at a European level following the surge in cases in China. She said coronavirus health controls would be stepped up at Spanish airports.
Darías didn’t specify when the new requirement would take effect.
Spain made the announcement after Italy said it would require coronavirus tests for airline passengers from China. Health officials from the 27-member European Union on Thursday promised to continue talks on seeking a common approach but held back from imposing restrictions.
“There exists a shared concern internationally and nationally over the evolution of cases in China and the difficulty to make a correct evaluation of the COVID-19 situation given the scant information that we have available,” Darías said.
Darías noted that China would be lifting travel restrictions from Jan. 8 and there was likely to be a major increase in people traveling abroad. She said the chief concern was the possible emergence of new coronavirus variants and it was important to act fast.
The United States announced new COVID-19 testing requirements Wednesday for travelers from China, joining some Asian nations that had imposed restrictions. Japan on Friday started requiring tests for passengers arriving from China.
A woman in France accidentally received a phone bill of €11,721,000,000,000,000 (million billion). This was 5000x the GDP of France at the time. It took several days of wrangling before the phone company finally admitted it was a mistake and she owed just €117.21. They let her off.
KYIV, Ukraine — France’s defense minister on Wednesday pledged further military support for Ukraine, insisting his government’s backing is unflagging while efforts are also being made with Moscow to reach an eventual negotiated end to Russia’s invasion.
Minister for the Armed Forces Sebastien Lecornu said support will include French army equipment and a 200 million euro (US$212 million) fund that would allow Ukraine to purchase weapons.
While France has been less vocal about its military backing for Ukraine than the United States and Britain, the country has sent a steady supply of weapons to Ukraine since Russia invaded on Feb. 24.
France hosted two aid conferences for Ukraine this month. But many in Ukraine remain critical of Paris’ response to the war because of President Emmanuel Macron’s efforts to maintain contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin and seek a negotiated solution.
Lecornu said France was giving military equipment from the French army to the Ukrainian army, but highlighted that this would not weaken France’s defense. France could deliver a new air-defense system in the future, officials said, without revealing details, though Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov added that France would immediately begin training Ukrainian air officers on how to use it.
Lecornu and Reznikov did not specify which new air defense system France could give Ukraine in the near future. But Lecornu later mentioned the MAMBA anti-missile system developed together with Italy, describing it as the European equivalent of the Patriot air defense system that the U.S. has given Ukraine.
Unlike the U.S. government, which announced it was giving the Patriots before teaching Ukrainians how to use them, France will train Ukrainians first so that it could potentially deliver a new system, such as the Mamba SAMP/T together with Italy, once they are ready to use it, Lecornu’s office explained to the AP.
Reznikov said Ukraine’s top priority remains “air defense, anti-missile defense, anti-drone defense, that is, the task of protecting (the) Ukrainian sky.” French Crotale air-defense systems already are “on combat duty,” said Reznikov.
“And accordingly, we agreed that we will increase (the) capabilities of our air force,” he said.
Lecornu arrived a week after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the U.S., Ukraine’s chief ally, and amid fighting focused mostly in the country’s east but with neither Moscow nor Kyiv reporting major gains in recent weeks.
After a meeting with Lecornu, Zelenskyy expressed gratitude to France on social media “for the already provided military assistance aimed at protecting the Ukrainian sky and strengthening the capabilities of the defense forces.”
Earlier on Wednesday, in his annual speech to Ukraine’s parliament, Zelenskyy urged the European Union to open membership talks with his country after granting it candidate status in June. He also praised relations with the U.S., saying its decision to send Patriot missiles is “a special sign of trust in Ukraine.”
While both Russia and Ukraine have said they were willing to participate in peace talks, their stated conditions remain far apart. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reiterated Wednesday that any peace plan must acknowledge four regions of Ukraine that Russia illegally annexed as Russian territory, a demand that Kyiv flatly rejects.
Russian forces have pressed their offensive to capture all of eastern Ukraine by concentrating in recent weeks on Bakhmut, a city in Donetsk province. Ukrainian forces were pushing a counteroffensive toward Kreminna, a city in neighboring Luhansk province, in hopes of potentially dividing Russia’s troops in the east.
France has supplied Ukraine with a substantial chunk of its arsenal of Caesar cannons, as well as anti-tank missiles, Crotale air defense missile batteries and rocket launchers. It is also training some 2,000 Ukrainian troops on French soil. Macron pledged last week to provide a new injection of weapons in early 2023.
Western military aid to Ukraine has angered Moscow. On Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused Washington and NATO of fueling the war with the aim of weakening Russia and warned the conflict could spin out of control.
Russia invaded Ukraine 10 months ago, alleging a threat to its security orchestrated by NATO. The war has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced millions so far, with an end nowhere in sight.
Russian attacks on power stations and other infrastructure have left millions of Ukrainians without heating and electricity for hours or days at a time.
The latest Russian shelling wounded at least eight civilians, including three in Bakhmut, Donetsk regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said.
In the southern region of Kherson, Russian shelling hit a maternity hospital soon after two women gave birth there, although Ukrainian officials said no one was wounded.
Ukraine’s foreign minister told The Associated Press this week that his government would like to see a peace conference by the end of February. Ukraine has said in the past that it wouldn’t negotiate with Russia before the full withdrawal of its troops, while Moscow insists its military gains and the 2014 annexation of the Crimean Peninsula cannot be ignored.
Asked about Ukraine’ intention to hold a February summit under the U.N.’s aegis, Kremlin spokesman Peskov said any peace plan could only proceed from the assumption of Russia’s sovereignty over the illegally annexed areas of Ukraine.
“There isn’t any peace plan by Ukraine yet,” Peskov said during a conference call with reporters. “And there can’t be any Ukrainian peace plan that fails to take into account today’s realities regarding the Russian territory, the incorporation of the new four regions into Russia. Any plan that fails to acknowledge these realities can’t be considered a peace plan.”
———
Charlton reported from Paris.
———
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Death and devastation are not the only calling cards COVID-19 will be remembered by. The pandemic has also drastically widened inequalities across the globe over the past three years.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, 131 billionaires more than doubled their net worth during the pandemic. The world’s richest person, Louis Vuitton chief Bernard Arnault, was worth $159bn on December 27, 2022, up by around $60bn compared with early 2020. Elon Musk, the planet’s second-wealthiest man, boasted a $139bn fortune — it was less than $50bn before the pandemic. And India’s Gautam Adani, third on the index, has seen his wealth increase more than tenfold in this period, from approximately $10bn at the start of 2020 to $110bn at the end of 2022.
At the same time, close to 97 million people — more than the population of any European nation — were pushed into extreme poverty in just 2020, earning less than $1.90 a day (the World Bank-defined poverty line). The global poverty rate is estimated to have gone up from 7.8 percent to 9.1 percent by late 2021. Now, skyrocketing inflation is affecting real wage growth, eating into the disposable incomes of people around the world.
To curb rising prices, central banks are reducing the flow of money into the economy by increasing interest rates and withdrawing excess liquidity. But that has again boomeranged on workers, with companies — from tech firms like Amazon, Twitter and Meta to banks like Goldman Sachs — announcing layoffs at the end of an already tumultuous 2022.
Al Jazeera spoke to economists to understand why the rich keep getting richer even amid crises and whether that is inevitable each time there is an economic slowdown.
The short answer: Many countries adopt policies such as tax breaks and financial incentives for businesses to boost economies amid crises like the pandemic. Central banks flood the economy with money to make it easier to lend and spend. This helps the wealthy grow their money through financial market investments. But widening inequality is not unavoidable.
During economic crises, governments take measures to boost financial markets, like the New York Stock Exchange seen here, in turn helping the wealthy with major investments multiply their fortunes [Richard Drew/AP Photo]
Stock market boom
When the pandemic began, central banks across the world swung into action to protect financial markets that took a severe beating as governments started imposing lockdown restrictions.
To save the economy from collapsing, central banks slashed interest rates, thereby lowering borrowing costs and increasing the supply of money. They also pumped trillions of dollars into financial markets with the aim of encouraging companies to invest in the economy. Major central banks have infused more than $11 trillion into the global economy since 2020.
These interventions triggered a boom in the value of stocks, bonds and other financial instruments — but the rise in asset prices wasn’t accompanied by an increase in economic production.
“Instead of leading to more economic output, a bulk of the sudden infusion of money into the financial system led to a dramatic rise in asset prices, including stocks, which benefitted the rich,” Francisco Ferreira, director of the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics (LSE), told Al Jazeera.
A year into the pandemic, capital markets had risen $14 trillion, with 25 companies — mostly in the technology, electric vehicles and semiconductors segment — accounting for 40 percent of the total gains, according to an analysis of stock performance of 5,000 companies by consulting firm McKinsey.
“The result is that this pandemic period has seen the biggest surge in billionaire wealth since the records began,” Oxfam America’s Director of Economic Justice Nabil Ahmed told Al Jazeera. “And we are still coming to terms about how extraordinary that rise has been.”
Billionaires saw their fortunes increase as much in 24 months as they did in 23 years, according to Oxfam’s “Profiting from Pain” report released in May this year. Every 30 hours, while COVID-19 and rising food prices are pushing nearly one million more people into extreme poverty, the global economy is also spawning a new billionaire.
India’s Gautam Adani, centre, is today the world’s third-richest man, and his wealth has multiplied more than tenfold since the start of the pandemic [Rajesh Kumar Singh/AP Photo]
Pre-pandemic factors
To be sure, both income and wealth inequalities have been on the rise since the 1980s when governments across the world began deregulating and liberalising the economy to allow more private sector participation. Income inequality refers to the gulf in the disposable income of the rich and the poor whereas wealth inequality deals with the distribution of financial and real assets, such as stocks or housing, between the two groups.
Among other things, the post-liberalisation period also resulted in declining bargaining power of workers. At the same time, companies increasingly started turning to financial markets to borrow money for their investments, Yannis Dafermos, a senior lecturer in economics at SOAS University of London, told Al Jazeera.
“It is the financialisation of the economy in particular that generated a lot of income for the rich, who invest in financial assets,” Dafermos said. “And whenever an economic crisis strikes, the central banks’ response is to save the financial market from collapsing because it is so much interlinked with the real economy. This helps stock and bond markets to thrive creating more wealth and inequality.”
This is what major central banks did during the global financial crisis in 2008-09 — injecting liquidity into the market through various tools and lowering interest rates to encourage companies to borrow and invest.
“The easy money policy that began after the global financial crisis led to really low to negative interest rates and big liquidity in the financial system,” Jayati Ghosh, professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, told Al Jazeera. “So, in the past 15 years, corporations chose to reinvest the money into buying more financial assets chasing high returns, rather than increasing their production.”
The pandemic accelerated those structures of inequality – be it liberalisation of the labour market, surge in monopoly power or erosion of public taxation – Oxfam’s Ahmed said. One example is that 143 of 161 countries analysed by Oxfam froze tax rates for the rich during the pandemic, and 11 countries reduced them.
Tech giant Meta announced in November that it would lay off 11,000 employees, or 13 percent of its workforce. It’s one of many major companies to cut jobs in recent weeks. [Godofredo A Vásquez/AP Photo]
Inflation hits lower-income nations worst
As countries started easing COVID-19 restrictions, a sharp rise in consumer demand coupled with supply shocks contributed to global inflation touching record levels.
That has forced central banks to wind up their policies of allowing access to easy money. They have also announced sharp interest rate rises. Their aim now is to reduce demand so that prices soften and, in advanced economies like the United States, to also cool down the jobs market.
To preserve their earnings in the wake of this policy shift, major companies have now started announcing job cuts, even as inflation bites the poor with low savings.
“Even when inflation has increased, the profit margins of firms have not declined,” Dafermos said. Large companies are retaining profits to give dividends to their shareholders rather than increasing wage incomes, even as smaller companies suffer due to a lack of investments by bigger firms, he said.
Interest rate increases have increased borrowing costs, also affecting the ability of low-income and developing countries to spend more on welfare schemes as they have high levels of public and private debt.
“Because of the way the global financial system works, there will be a lot of pressure on developing countries to implement austerity measures,” Dafermos said. “That can create more inequalities and for me, this is perhaps more significant because it limits their capacity to provide social protection to the poor.”
According to Oxfam, lower-income countries spent approximately 27 percent of their budgets in repaying their debts – twice the money spent on education and four times that on health.
Former US President Ronald Reagan, seen here hugging former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev at the New York Stock Exchange on May 14, 1992, was among a series of leaders who deregulated economies in the 1980s [File: Richard Drew/AP Photo/Pool]
Inequality is a political choice
After World War II, countries started following progressive taxation policies and took steps to address monopoly power, Ahmed said. And while many nations reversed that approach during the pandemic, a few bucked the trend. Costa Rica increased its highest tax rate by 10 percent and New Zealand by 6 percent in order to redistribute wealth.
“There are examples of countries doing the right thing. And it reminds us that inequality is not inevitable. It’s a policy and a political choice,” Ahmed said.
If left unaddressed, on the other hand, wealth inequality gives power to the rich to influence policies in their favour, which can further deepen the income divide, independent of the boom-and-bust nature of economic cycles. “Higher wealth tends to be associated with capture of government and state institutions by the elite,” Ferreira at the London School of Economics said.
This, he said, can take different forms in different democratic contexts. But the result is the same. “The bargaining power of the rich increases due to various tools they use such as lobbying,” he said. “Policies end up benefitting the wealthy and that again creates a cycle. But, this time, it’s a political cycle.”
PARIS — The man suspected of fatally shooting three Kurds in Paris ahead of Christmas weekend told investigators that he had set out that morning aiming to kill migrants or foreigners and then himself, according to prosecutors.
The 69-year-old man killed three people outside a Kurdish cultural center Friday and wounded three others, and was then disarmed and subdued by one of the injured victims, the Paris prosecutor’s office said Sunday.
He was detained at the scene and transferred Saturday to psychiatric care. His name hasn’t been released. If he is released from psychiatric care, he faces potential charges of racially motivated murder, attempted murder and arms violations.
The prosecutor’s office said in a statement Sunday that the suspect told investigators that a 2016 burglary at his home marked a turning point for him, sparking what he called a “hatred toward foreigners that became completely pathological.”
The shooting in a bustling Parisian neighborhood shook and angered the Kurdish community, and stirred up concerns about hate crimes at a time when far-right voices have gained prominence in France and around Europe.
The suspect told investigators that the morning of the shooting, he took his weapon first to the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis with the aim of killing foreigners but changed his mind, the prosecutor’s statement said. He then went to the Kurdish center in Paris, which is near his parents’ home.
He opened fire on one woman and two men there, then entered a Kurdish-run hair salon across the street and fired on three men. One of the wounded men in the hair salon managed to stop him and hold him until police arrived, the prosecutor’s statement said.
He told investigators he didn’t know his victims, and described all “non European foreigners” as his enemies, the statement said.
Two of the injured were still hospitalized Sunday with leg injuries.
Investigators are studying his computer and phone, but haven’t found any confirmed links to extremist ideology, the statement said.
On Saturday, members of France’s Kurdish community and anti-racism activists joined together in a demonstration of mourning and anger. The gathering was largely peaceful, with marchers holding portraits of the victims.
Some youths threw objects and set a few cars and garbage bins on fire, and police fired tear gas to disperse the crowd. A spokesperson for the Kurdish Democratic Council in France said the violence began after some people drove by waving a Turkish flag. Some of the marchers carried flags of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.
In 2013, three women Kurdish activists, including Sakine Cansiz, a PKK founder, were found shot dead at a Kurdish center in Paris.
Turkey’s army has long been battling against Kurdish militants affiliated with the banned PKK in southeast Turkey as well as in northern Iraq. Turkey’s military also recently launched a series of strikes from the air and with artillery against Syrian Kurdish militant targets in northern Syria.
Turkey, the United States and the European Union consider the PKK a terror group, but Turkey accuses some European countries of leniency toward alleged PKK members. That frustration has been the main reason behind Turkey’s continued delay of Sweden and Finland’s NATO membership.
Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said Sunday the violence in the Paris protests was a result of lenience toward the PKK.
“The snake France fed is now biting them. Everyone should now see the real face of this terror organization,” Akar said.
———
Zeynep Bilginsoy contributed to this report from Istanbul.
PARIS — Members of France‘s Kurdish community and anti-racism activists joined together in mourning and anger on Saturday in Paris after three people were killed at a Kurdish cultural center in an attack that prosecutors say was racially motivated.
The shooting in a bustling neighborhood of central Paris also wounded three people, and stirred up concerns about hate crimes against minority groups at a time when far-right voices have gained prominence in France and around Europe in recent years.
The suspected attacker was wounded and detained, and transferred Saturday to psychiatric care, the Paris prosecutor’s office said. The 69-year-old Parisian had been charged with attacking a migrant camp last year and released from jail earlier this month. For Friday’s shooting, he is facing potential charges of murder and attempted murder with a racist motive, the prosecutor’s office said.
Thousands gathered Saturday at the Place de la Republique in eastern Paris, waving a colorful spectrum of flags representing Kurdish rights groups, left-wing political movements and other causes.
The gathering was largely peaceful, though some youths threw projectiles and set a few cars and garbage bins on fire, and police fired tear gas to disperse the crowd. Some protesters shouted slogans against the Turkish government. Berivan Firat of the Kurdish Democratic Council in France told BFM TV that the violence began after some people drove by waving a Turkish flag.
Most demonstrators were ethnic Kurds of varying generations who came together to mourn the three fellow Kurds who were killed, who included a prominent feminist activist and a Kurdish singer who came to France as a refugee.
”We are devastated, really. We are destroyed because we lost a very important member of our community and we are angry. How is this possible?” said demonstrator Yekbun Ogur, a middle school biology teacher in Paris. “Is it normal for a man with a gun to sneak into a cultural place to come and murder people?”
Demonstrator Yunus Cicek wiped his tears away as spoke of the victims, and his fears. “We are not protected here. Even though I have political refugee status, I don’t feel safe. … Maybe next time it will be me.”
The shooting shook the Kurdish community and put French police on extra alert for the Christmas weekend. The Paris police chief met Saturday with members of the Kurdish community to try to allay their fears.
France’s Interior Ministry reported a 13% rise in race-related crimes or other violations in 2021 over 2019, after an 11% rise from 2018 to 2019. The ministry did not include 2020 in its statistics because of successive pandemic lockdowns that year. It said a disproportionate number of such crimes target people of African descent, and also cited hundreds of attacks based on religion.
Friday’s attack took place at the cultural center and a nearby Kurdish restaurant and Kurdish hair salon. Surveillance video from the hair salon shared online suggests people in the salon subdued the attacker before police reached the scene. The prosecutor’s office would not elaborate on the circumstances of his arrest.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said the suspect was clearly targeting foreigners, and had acted alone and was not officially affiliated with any extreme-right or other radical movements. The suspect had past convictions for illegal arms possession and armed violence.
Kurdish activists said they had recently been warned by police of threats to Kurdish targets.
In 2013, three women Kurdish activists, including Sakine Cansiz, a founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, were found shot dead at a Kurdish center in Paris.
Turkey’s army has long been battling against Kurdish militants affiliated with the banned PKK in southeast Turkey as well as in northern Iraq. Turkey’s military also recently launched a series of air and artillery strikes against Syrian Kurdish militant targets in northern Syria.
Prosecutors said on Saturday that the 69-year-old suspect had been removed from custody for health reasons on the same day and taken to a police psychiatric facility.
The gunshots at the cultural centre and a nearby hairdressing salon on Friday sparked panic in the city’s bustling 10th district, home to several shops and restaurants and a large Kurdish population.
Three others were wounded in the attack that the suspect told investigators was attributable to his being “racist”, a source close to the case told the AFP news agency.
The Paris prosecutor said a doctor examined the suspect’s health on Saturday afternoon and deemed it “not compatible with the measure of custody”.
The man’s custody was lifted and he was taken to a police psychiatric unit pending an appearance before an investigation judge as the probe continues, the prosecutor added.
Earlier on Saturday, the Paris prosecutor had extended the suspect’s period of detention for 24 hours and given an extra charge of acting with a “racist motive”.
He was already being held on suspicion of murder, attempted murder, armed violence and violating weapons legislation.
Protests in Paris
The suspect, who has a history of racist violence, initially targeted the Kurdish cultural centre before entering a hairdressing salon where he was arrested.
Of the three wounded people, one was being treated in intensive care in hospital, and two were treated for serious injuries.
According to the Kurdish Democratic Council in France (CDK-F), the dead included one woman and two men, AFP said.
The woman killed, Emine Kara, was a leader of the Kurdish Women’s Movement in France, the organisation’s spokesman Agit Polat said. Her claim for political asylum in France had been rejected.
The other victims were Abdulrahman Kizil and Mir Perwer, according to the CDK-F.
Thousands of Kurds gathered at the Place de la Republique square in central Paris on Saturday afternoon, where they held a minute of silence for the three killed and those “who died for freedom”.
Police fired tear gas after clashes erupted and the demonstrators threw projectiles at officers. AFP said at least four cars were overturned and one was burned.
The capital’s police chief, Laurent Nunez, told the BFM television channel that 31 officers and one protester were injured in the disturbances, while 11 people were arrested, “mainly for damage”.
More than 1,000 people held a similar rally in the southern port city of Marseille that ended in clashes with officers, and at least two police cars were set on fire.
PARIS (AP) — Convicted killer Charles Sobhraj, suspected in the deaths of at least 20 tourists around Asia in the 1970s, arrived in Paris as a free man Saturday after being released from a life sentence in a Nepal prison.
It was the latest twist in a dramatic life trajectory depicted in a series co-produced by the BBC and Netflix called “The Serpent,″ which aired last year. He has in the past admitted to killing Western tourists around Asia.
“I’m fine, I’m glad” to be in France, he told The Associated Press in a brief phone conversation after arriving at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. “We are going to have lunch.”
Sobhraj, a 78-year-old French citizen, had been serving time for the deaths of American and Canadian backpackers in Nepal in 1975, but was released Friday for health and other reasons.
His French lawyer, Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, told The AP that Sobhraj will contest his conviction in Nepal, describing him as an “optimist” and resilient after nearly 20 years behind bars.
French filmmaker Jean-Charles Deniau, who escorted Sobhraj out of the Paris airport and is releasing a film and book about his life, said, “He’s doing well. He has medicines. He will live in Paris, and a little bit everywhere.”
The French government did not respond to requests for comment on whether he could face judicial challenges in France. Sobhraj was born in Vietnam during French rule and claims French citizenship.
He is believed to have killed at least 20 people in Afghanistan, India, Thailand, Turkey, Nepal, Iran and Hong Kong between 1972 and 1982.
But despite multiple legal cases opened against him, judicial authorities across the region struggled to convict him for the killings — or to keep him behind bars.
He was arrested in New Delhi in 1976 and accused of murdering two tourists and stealing their jewelry. He was convicted of the theft but acquitted of murder. In Thailand, he faced 14 murder charges. He avoided being extradited by staying before the courts in India until the Thai case expired in 1996. In Thailand, he faced the death penalty.
In 1986, he escaped from New Delhi’s maximum-security Tihar prison after luring guards into sharing a drug-laced birthday cake, but was later recaptured.
In 1997, he was deported from India to France, where he lived freely but was investigated for allegedly trying to poison a group of French tourists in India.
He resurfaced in 2003 in a casino in the Nepalese city of Kathmandu, and was questioned about the unsolved murders of an American and a Canadian backpacker whose charred bodies were found on the city’s outskirts. He was convicted the following year and handed a life sentence.
Sobhraj insisted on his innocence in that case, though had in the past spoken of killing other tourists. When he was released from the Indian prison, he said he regretted aspects of his past.
Life sentences in Nepal are 20 years. In announcing his release this week, the Nepal Supreme Court said he has heart disease, and had already served more than 75% of his sentence and had behaved well in prison, making him eligible for release.
He was freed Friday and ordered to leave Nepal within 15 days. A friend helped finance a ticket to France, and the French Embassy prepared travel documents allowing him to leave, attorney Gopal Siwakoti Chitan said.
His French lawyer welcomed his release. “I’m very happy but very shocked that it took 19 years to obtain his normal freedom,” Coutant-Peyre said at the airport. She said his murder conviction in Nepal was a “fabricated case” and said the French government didn’t do enough to help or defend him.
She said Sobhraj watched the series “The Serpent” and said it was “garbage first of all, and that 70 percent of it is totally false.”
The series notably traces how Dutch diplomat Herman Knippenberg initiated an international investigation into Sobhraj’s alleged killings.
His “serpent” nickname stems from his reputation as a disguise and escape artist. He was also known as “the bikini killer” because he often targeted young women.
___
Binaj Gurubacharya in Kathmandu, Nepal, contributed.
PARIS — Confessed serial killer Charles Sobhraj arrived in France Saturday after being released from a life sentence in a Nepal prison.
Sobhraj, a 78-year-old French citizen, had been serving time for the deaths of American and Canadian backpackers in the 1970s. He has in the past admitted killing several Western tourists around Asia, and was the focus of a series co-produced by the BBC and Netflix called “The Serpent.”
He arrived Saturday at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris on a flight from Nepal via Qatar, his French lawyer, Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, told The Associated Press.
She welcomed his release. “I’m very happy but very shocked that it took 19 years to obtain his normal freedom,” she said at the airport. She said his murder conviction in Nepal was a “fabricated case, based on falsified documents.”
She said Sobhraj will rest now that he is back in France.
The French government did not respond to requests for comment on whether he could face judicial challenges in France.
Sobhraj is believed to have killed at least 20 people in Afghanistan, India, Thailand, Turkey, Nepal, Iran and Hong Kong during the 1970s.
Sobhraj was held for two decades in New Delhi’s maximum-security Tihar prison on suspicion of theft but was deported without charge to France in 1997. He resurfaced in 2003 in Kathmandu, and was convicted the next year for the murders of American and Canadian backpackers in Nepal.
Life sentences in Nepal are 20 years. In announcing his release this week, the Nepal Supreme Court said he had already served more than 75% of his sentence and had behaved well in prison, making him eligible for release, and he has heart disease.
He was released Friday and ordered to leave Nepal within 15 days. A ticket was purchased with money received from a friend, and the French Embassy in Kathmandu prepared the necessary travel documents allowing him to take a flight out, attorney Gopal Siwakoti Chitan said.
His “serpent” nickname stems from his reputation as a disguise and escape artist. He was also known as “the bikini killer” because he often targeted young women.
A shooting targeting a Kurdish cultural center in a bustling Paris neighborhood Friday left three people dead and three others wounded, authorities said. A 69-year-old suspect was wounded and arrested.
The Paris prosecutor’s office opened an investigation for murder and attempted murder. The Paris prosecutor said the suspect had a prior police record, including an arrest for attacking migrants living in tents, and that investigators are considering a possible racist motive for the shooting.
The shooting occurred at midday at a Kurdish cultural center and a restaurant and hairdresser nearby, according to the mayor for the 10th arrondissement, Alexandra Cordebard. Speaking to reporters at the scene, she said the “real motivation″ for the shooting remains unclear.
As she spoke, a crowd nearby chanted, “Erdogan, terrorist” — referring to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan — and “Turkish state, assassin.”
A police officers guards the crime scene where a shooting took place in Paris, Friday, Dec. 23, 2022. aMultiple people have been wounded and one person arrested after a shooting in central Paris on Friday, authorities said.
Lewis Joly / AP
Police cordoned off the area in the 10th arrondissement of the French capital, on a busy street with shops and restaurants near the Gare de l’Est train station. The shooting came at a time when Paris is buzzing with activity before the Christmas weekend. The Paris police department warned people to stay away from the area.
Paris Prosecutor Laure Beccuau said three people hit in the shooting have died, one is in critical condition and two others are hospitalized with less serious injuries. The attacker was also wounded in the face, she said.
She said anti-terrorism prosecutors are in contact with investigators, but haven’t indicated any sign of a terrorist motive.
In 2013, three women Kurdish activists, including Sakine Cansiz — a founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK — were found shot dead at a Kurdish center in Paris. A Turkish citizen was charged with their killing, although suspicion also fell on the Turkish intelligence service.
Turkey’s army has been battling against Kurdish militants affiliated with the banned PKK, in southeast Turkey as well as in northern Iraq. Turkey’s military has also recently launched a series of strikes from the air and with artillery against Syrian Kurdish militant targets in northern Syria. The PKK is considered a terrorist organization in Turkey, Europe and the United States, and has led an armed insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984.
France was hit by a string of deadly attacks by Islamic extremists in 2015-2016 and remains on alert for terrorism-related violence.
LONDON — Air travelers faced possible delays at U.K. airports Friday as government employees who check passports went on strike in the latest of a spate of walkouts over pay amid a cost-of-living crisis.
France braced for similar Christmas travel disruption, with a weekend rail strike starting to bite on Friday.
The strike by Border Force staff was due to continue through the end of the year, with the exception of next Tuesday.
Hundreds of thousands of passengers could be affected, though the British government said it was preparing military personnel and workers from other public services to help out at airports.
The strikes are putting pressure on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government, which is refusing demands from public sector workers for substantial pay rises.
Inflation stood at 10.7% in November, driven by food and energy prices in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Sunak said he regretted the walkout and advised people to check on their journey plans before setting out.
“I am really sad and I am disappointed about the disruption that is being caused to so many people’s lives, particularly at Christmas time,” he said during a visit to a homeless shelter in London.
He insisted his government has acted “fairly and reasonably” in public sector pay negotiations.
Thousands of National Health Service nurses walked off the job Tuesday in their second 24-hour strike this month. Ambulance drivers, paramedics and dispatchers also went on strike earlier this week and plan another walkout on Dec. 28.
Postal deliveries, highway maintenance and driving tests are also being disrupted by strikes.
Further travel difficulties loomed on Saturday, Christmas Eve, when most train services were expected to be canceled.
The labor unrest is set to continue into the new year, when more strikes are planned.
Nurses announced Friday they plan walkouts on Jan. 18 and 19.
France faced similar problems with travel and walkouts.
About half of France’s train conductors are going on strike for the Christmas weekend. A third of scheduled train services were canceled Friday and 40% of trains were canceled for Saturday and Sunday, according to the SNCF national rail authority.
The strikers are demanding higher pay and more staff. It’s among several strikes in France stemming from the rising cost of living, including energy bills, in recent months.
High-speed train lines from France to Spain and Italy, and regional services, were also due to experience disruptions.
Conductors, who collect tickets and manage on-board operations, are demanding more than the 12% over two years offered by SNCF.
The strike came at a time of traditional gatherings for many French families who struggled to meet family and friends during the COVID-19 pandemic. Travelers expressed anger at the walkout, which was strongly criticized by the French government.
“To go on strike at such a time is incomprehensible and unjustifiable,” French Transport Minister Clement Beaune told France Info.
Argentina’s World Cup-winning squad arrived home to a jubilant Buenos Aires in the early hours of Tuesday morning, with massive crowds lining the streets and cheering their champions’ return.
Captain Lionel Messi stepped off the plane first, holding the gold trophy aloft, followed by his triumphant team onto a red carpet at the airport, greeted by reporters, officials and a live band.
As the team bus departed the airport, it was immediately swarmed by cheering supporters dressed in the national colors of blue and white. Videos show the bus inching forward slowly behind a police escort, surrounded by tens of thousands of people waving the Argentine flag and setting off firecrackers in the night.
The air was filled with cheers as the crowd sang and danced; the players, standing on the open top deck, waved to their adoring supporters.
Hundreds of thousands of fans are expected to line the streets of the capital later on Tuesday, which has been declared a national holiday, for the team’s victory parade following their thrilling penalty shootout victory over France in Qatar on Sunday.
The team will first spend the night at the Argentine Football Association’s training ground, according to state media agency Télam.
Crowds of supporters had camped out at the training site on Monday ahead of the team’s arrival, with photos showing fans spilling out of cars parked on its grounds. Some laid on blankets on the grass while others lounged on picnic chairs around coolers.
The team’s highly-anticipated return continues several days of nonstop celebration across the country and among fans overseas, following Argentina’s explosive win against France.
Mbappé was defending France’s 2018 win at the tournament in Russia, while 35-year-old Messi was playing in his final World Cup match, looking to claim the trophy which had eluded him for so long.
Argentina took an early lead in the first half – but France roared back in the second half, reaching a 2-2 tie that forced the match into extra time.
Messi scored his second goal of the match to restore his team’s lead – but Mbappé scored a second penalty to grab his hat-trick and take the final to a penalty shootout, which ended with triumph for Argentina after France missed two shots.
Hundreds of thousands of people poured onto the streets of Buenos Aires after the World Cup triumph, flooding the central 9 de Julio Avenue. Social media videos showed jubilant fans climbing on top of street poles to wave the Argentine flag; others on the ground danced, sang and chanted in celebration.
The triumph in Doha was Argentina’s third World Cup win and its first since 1986, when the legendary Diego Maradona led the team to victory in Mexico.
Sunday’s win also marked a change in fortunes for Argentina after three recent defeats in major finals – the 2014 World Cup, and the Copa America in 2015 and 2016.
Those losses prompted Messi at one point to announce his retirement from international football – though the almost-unanimous national outcry convinced him to reverse track, before wining the Copa América in 2021.
Now, with the World Cup also under his belt, Messi has cemented his status as one of the all-time soccer greats alongside Maradona and Brazil’s Pelé.
“I cannot believe that we have suffered so much in a perfect game. Unbelievable, but this team responds to everything,” said Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni after the match Sunday, according to Reuters.
“I am proud of the work they did,” he added, fighting back tears as he was embraced by his players. “I want to tell people to enjoy, it’s a historic moment for our country.”
Today is Tuesday, Dec. 20, the 354th day of 2022. There are 11 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Dec. 20, 1803, the Louisiana Purchase was completed as ownership of the territory was formally transferred from France to the United States.
On this date:
In 1860, South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union as all 169 delegates to a special convention in Charleston voted in favor of separation.
In 1864, Confederate forces evacuated Savannah, Georgia, as Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman nearly completed his “March to the Sea.”
In 1945, the Office of Price Administration announced the end of tire rationing, effective Jan. 1, 1946.
In 1963, the Berlin Wall was opened for the first time to West Berliners, who were allowed one-day visits to relatives in the Eastern sector for the holidays.
In 1987, more than 4,300 people were killed when the Dona Paz (DOHN’-yuh pahz), a Philippine passenger ship, collided with the tanker Vector off Mindoro island.
In 1989, the United States launched Operation Just Cause, sending troops into Panama to topple the government of Gen. Manuel Noriega.
In 1995, an American Airlines Boeing 757 en route to Cali, Colombia, slammed into a mountain, killing all but four of the 163 people aboard. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, NATO began its peacekeeping mission, taking over from the United Nations.
In 1999, the Vermont Supreme Court ruled that homosexual couples were entitled to the same benefits and protections as wedded heterosexual couples.
In 2001, the U.N. Security Council authorized a multinational force for Afghanistan.
In 2002, Trent Lott resigned as Senate Republican leader two weeks after igniting a political firestorm with racially charged remarks.
In 2005, a federal judge ruled that “intelligent design” could not be mentioned in biology classes in a Pennsylvania public school district, delivering a stinging attack on the Dover Area School Board.
In 2016, President Barack Obama designated the bulk of U.S.-owned waters in the Arctic Ocean and certain areas in the Atlantic Ocean as indefinitely off limits to future oil and gas leasing. Two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova was injured in her playing hand by a knife-wielding attacker at her Czech Republic home and underwent surgery. (The attacker was sentenced to 11 years in prison.)
Ten years ago: The State Department acknowledged major weaknesses in security and errors in judgment exposed in a scathing independent report on the deadly Sept. 11, 2012 assault on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya. The National Hockey League, in a labor fight with its players, announced the cancellation of the 2012-13 regular-season schedule through Jan. 14, 2013.
Five years ago: The House gave final congressional approval to a $1.5 trillion tax overhaul, the biggest package of tax changes in a generation and the first major legislative achievement of President Donald Trump and House and Senate Republicans; some Republicans warned of a potential backlash against an overhaul that offered corporations and wealthy taxpayers the biggest benefits. Cardinal Bernard Law, the disgraced former archbishop of Boston, died in Rome at the age of 86; his failure to stop child molesters in the priesthood had triggered a crisis in American Catholicism.
One year ago: In a major step to fight climate change, the Biden administration raised vehicle mileage standards to significantly reduce emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases. Warning that extremism in the ranks was increasing, Pentagon officials issued detailed new rules prohibiting service members from actively engaging in extremist activities. Federal health officials said the omicron variant had accounted for an estimated 73% of new U.S. coronavirus infections in the preceding week. CBS and Universal Television said actor Chris Noth would no longer be part of the CBS series “The Equalizer” in the wake of sexual assault allegations against him; Noth had vehemently denied the allegations.
Today’s Birthdays: Original Mouseketeer Tommy Cole (TV: “The Mickey Mouse Club”) is 81. R&B singer-musician Walter “Wolfman” Washington is 79. Rock musician-music producer Bobby Colomby is 78. Rock musician Peter Criss is 77. Former U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue is 76. Psychic/illusionist Uri Geller is 76. Producer Dick Wolf (“Law & Order”) is 76. Rock musician Alan Parsons is 74. Actor Jenny Agutter is 70. Actor Michael Badalucco is 68. Actor Blanche Baker is 66. Rock singer Billy Bragg is 65. Rock singer-musician Mike Watt (The Secondmen, Minutemen, fIREHOSE) is 65. Actor Joel Gretsch is 59. Country singer Kris Tyler is 58. Rock singer Chris Robinson is 56. Actor Nicole deBoer is 52. Movie director Todd Phillips is 52. Singer David Cook (“American Idol”) is 40. Actor Jonah Hill is 39. Actor Bob Morley is 38. Singer JoJo is 32. Actor Colin Woodell is 31.
PARIS — Fans are set to welcome the France team in central Paris on Monday evening after its loss against Argentina in in one of the greatest finals in World Cup history.
Kylian Mbappé and his teammates, who left Qatar on Monday, are expected to go to Place de la Concorde in the evening to greet supporters, according to a statement from the French Football Federation.
In contrast with 2018, when France won the World Cup in Russia, the players will not have a parade on the Champs-Elysees avenue.
In his first message published on Instagram and Twitter following Sunday’s defeat, Mbappé posted a photo of himself, head down, behind the World Cup trophy with the message: “We will be back.”
More than 24 million people — eight out of 10 viewers — watched the final on French TF1 television, a record high.
France played its part in one of the most memorable finishes in World Cup history, even though the defending champions failed to retain the title. Mbappé’s hat trick of goals helped give France a 3-3 draw with Argentina after extra time, leading to a penalty shootout.
———
AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/world-cup and https://twitter.com/AP—Sports
Three years into the COVID-19 crisis, which upended lives across the globe and led the EU to promise to work better together when the next health crisis emerged, countries have once again been involved in a political tug-of-war.
China’s decision to lift its zero-COVID policy has led to a surge in cases that has alarmed the world. But early attempts at a joint EU response were dashed when Italy announced its own border control measures on arrivals from China.
While the EU is now inching toward a coordinated approach on travel measures for arrivals from China — including pre-departure testing, masks on flights and testing wastewater for possible new variants — and is set to hold a meeting of its crisis response body on Wednesday, it comes after countries one-by-one announced unilateral measures for travelers arriving from China.
“It is disappointing to me that — despite three years of pandemic — there still is not a coordinated EU united response,” said Marion Koopmans, head of the Erasmus MC’s department of viroscience.
So why did European unity fall at the first hurdle? Here’s what you need to know.
What measures are in place for arrivals from China?
Here’s a brief rundown of a fast-moving situation. Most countries have announced some form of testing, with Italy testing travelers arriving from China and isolating those that are positive. Spain is testing and carrying out temperature checks, and from Tuesday, imposing COVID certificates, and France requires negative tests before traveling from China, masks on planes and PCR tests on arrival for all passengers.
Sweden became the latest EU country to announce plans to implement restrictions, saying Tuesday that it was “preparing to introduce travel restrictions requiring a negative COVID-19 test for entry to Sweden from China.”
Across the Channel, the U.K. announced Friday it would require a negative test before travel and would also be taking samples from arrivals.
Belgium, however, has taken a different tack, testing the wastewater from planes twice a week and sequencing the samples to search for new variants.
All this could change on Wednesday, however, with the EU’s crisis response body meeting to discuss (finally) a coordinated response.
A Chinese traveler leaves the arrival hall of Rome Fiumicino airport on December 29, 2022 after being tested for COVID-19 | Filippo Monteforte/AFP via Getty Images
Why the different responses?
There are multiple factors at play — bitter experience, fear of new variants, concerns about China’s secrecy, and good old economics.
Italy, the first to strike out alone, has said its rules will ensure “surveillance and identification of any variants of the virus in order to protect the Italian population.” This decision seems to be driven by the psychology that Italy was hit incredibly hard by COVID-19 in 2020, said Elizabeth Kuiper, associate director and head of the social Europe and well-being program at the European Policy Centre think tank.
France has justified its decision by saying the government has taken “health control measures in order to ensure the protection of the French population.” As well as testing, they will also be sequencing positive test results to screen for new variants, according to the prime minister, Elisabeth Borne, potentially belying a mistrust of information coming out of China.
Over in the U.K., the government has no qualms about saying its decision is due to the “lack of comprehensive health information shared by China.” The health ministry said that if there is an improvement in the sharing of information and greater transparency “then temporary measures will be reviewed.”
Others have held back. For Austria, which has so far resisted pressure from countries like Italy to coalesce around bloc-wide travel measures, any restriction on China arrivals would be a massive blow. The Austrian government has said that China’s reopening “heralds the return of the most important Asian source market for the coming tourism seasons.”
This is “a clear example of how countries are trying to balance the economic consequences of COVID and public health concerns,” said Kuiper.
Didn’t EU countries agree to work together?
One of Europe’s key lessons from the pandemic was supposed to have been to respond collectively to health threats. It was so important to countries that the EU Health Union was established. But the disagreements over China show that the “default to knee-jerk national responses hasn’t entirely gone away,” said Paul Belcher, consultant in European public health and adviser to the European Public Health Alliance.
This disorderly response has raised questions over whether EU coordination has taken the right form. A central part of the EU Health Union is the Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA), which was established precisely to enable Europe to respond quickly and appropriately during a health crisis. But it sits within the European Commission rather than independently — which has tied its hands somewhat, argued the European Policy Centre’s Kuiper.
“If HERA would have been an independent agency, they could have taken a stronger EU position concerning the need for travel restrictions for passengers coming from China,” Kuiper said. Without this leadership, countries have taken measures based on national motivations, she said.
Can we believe Chinese data?
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that in order to make a comprehensive risk assessment of the situation on the ground the WHO “needs more detailed information” | Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images
Concerns about China’s transparency on COVID-19 are nothing new but as the country opens its borders, even the World Health Organization, which usually declines to point the finger at specific countries, has called for more information.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said that in order to make a comprehensive risk assessment of the situation on the ground the WHO “needs more detailed information.”
What China is doing is sharing genetic sequence data on the international database GISAID, “which is laudable,” said David Heymann, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “But they are not sharing the epidemiological data that will help understand the transmissibility and virulence that goes along with each sequence information and thus leaving a gap in our understanding,” he said.
Meanwhile, China isn’t pleased with the global response. “Some countries have implemented entry restrictions targeting only Chinese travelers. This has no scientific basis, and some practices are unacceptable,” a spokesperson said.
What does the science say?
“There is no scientific consensus on what to do, whether it makes sense to test everyone at arrival or not,” said Steven Van Gucht, head of the scientific service of viral diseases at the Belgian national institute for public and animal health. “The current discussion is a mixture of the scientific debate, but it’s also political.”
One of the major concerns is that new variants could emerge from China. Some scientists say this is unlikely as China is behind the curve on new variants. “Because China’s variants have been and gone in the rest of the world, the threat of these viruses coming back out of China and causing waves is pretty unlikely,” said virologist Tom Peacock of Imperial College, London. Initial sequencing out of Italy has indicated that there were no new COVID variants among Chinese visitors.
Koopmans said that — based on what has been shared so far — the variants circulating in China are not so different from what’s being seen in other parts of the world, but “there are no reasons to assume they are ‘less fit.’”
However, if a new variant did emerge, it’s unlikely travel restrictions would completelystop the spread. For Koopmans, travel restrictions “in the past have shown they are not very effective at delaying transmission of variants.”
One way of quickly spotting the arrival of new variants without targeting individual passengers is to test wastewater from toilets on airplanes or at airports, something that European Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides has called for — and which is on the table for Wednesday’s meeting.
PARIS — France will deliver “light” battle tanks to Ukraine, President Emmanuel Macron’s office announced Wednesday, adding that France would be the first country to send such Western-designed armored fighting vehicles to the war.
The Elysée said after a phone call between Macron and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy that France will send AMX-10 RC armored fighting vehicles, which Paris has been gradually replacing with new Jaguar battle tanks.
Several countries have already sent Soviet-era tanks to Ukraine. Both France and Germany have been under pressure to supply tanks to Ukraine, but had refused Kyiv’s requests, until now.
An adviser to France’s Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu said Wednesday’s decision was made to help Ukraine prepare for “a possible Russian offensive” in the spring.
“Ukraine is at a tipping point now at the frontline … Russia is trying to terrorize the population with its drone attacks that sometimes reach as far as Kyiv, but Ukraine could also start a counter-offensive,” he said.
Zelenskyy thanked Macron on Twitter, saying the two leaders had “a long and detailed conversation” and that the French president’s “leadership brings our victory closer.”
However, Ukraine’s requests for more arms from allies have still not been fully satisfied: In December, Kyiv formally asked for another model of tank, the Leclerc — France’s main battle tank — rather than AMX-10 vehicles, which are being phased out. The AMX-10 is lighter, less protected and has a shorter range than the Leclerc.
However the delivery of French armoured vehicles, though not fully-fledged battle tanks, might encourage others to follow suit, argued retired French colonel and military consultant Michel Goya.
“We’ve made a gesture … we can now boast that we were the first to send tanks, even though they are not the same class as the battle tanks used in Ukraine. But the move can also have an incitement effect on others,” said Goya.
On Wednesday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz faced renewed calls to send Leopard-2 tanks to Ukraine.
“The argument constantly advanced by the chancellery that Germany must not go it alone is absolutely out of date,” said Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, who heads Germany’s parliamentary defence committee in an interview with AFP.
“France is once again taking on the role that was expected of Germany, and is going ahead alone,” she said.
Macron’s government did not specify how many vehicles it will send. The French and Ukrainian defense ministries are expected to discuss the details of the equipment delivery soon.
For retired general Jérôme Pellistrandi, director of National Defense magazine, the rate of replacement of the AMX-10s by new generation vehicles within the French army gives an indication of the potential scale of the supplies.
“The land forces have received 38 Jaguar vehicles, that means that the same number of AMX-10s have been removed from service, so thirty thereabouts should be available to be transferred to Ukraine,” Pellistrandi said.
Built for Soviet times
The AMX-10 is a light, highly mobile, armoured vehicle equipped with a 105mm cannon. It has been used in reconnaissance missions for the French army and was deployed as recently as the Barkhane mission in Africa, which formally ended in November.
“It’s a vehicle that was designed in the 70s and 80s to track the advance of Soviet armed land forces. The paradox is that it will be used today for the purpose it was built for … because the Russians have shown their doctrine hasn’t shifted much since the Soviet times,” Pellistrandi said.
The light tanks are useful in operations and can be deployed ahead of Ukrainian battle tanks in the event of a renewed Russian offensive in the spring, according to Pellistrandi.
However, Goya argued that the delivery of several dozen French AMX-10s to the warzone is unlikely to change the dynamic on the Ukrainian battlefield.
“It can help, but in terms of numbers it’s not much given that there are hundreds of thousands of armoured vehicles in Ukraine. The Ukrainians will use them well, but they don’t fire as far as Russian tanks,” he said.
It’s likely that the Ukrainians will keep up the pressure on France and Germany to send battle tanks, alongside other high tech military equipment. But according to a French Armed Forces ministry adviser, the upkeep of France’s defense capacities has remained “a red line” for Macron, which limits the scope for deliveries.
SAINT-PAUL-LEZ-DURANCE, France — Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine has ripped apart Moscow’s ties with the EU and the U.S. on everything from energy to trade to travel — but there’s one partnership they can’t escape.
Tucked away in a quiet sun-soaked corner of southern France, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) — an effort to harness the power of nuclear fusion to unleash vast amounts of clean energy — continues to purr along with the participation of Russian scientists and Russian technology.
Earlier this month, scientists at ITER hailed a major breakthrough announced by the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, which said it had overcome a major barrier — producing more energy from a fusion experiment than was put in.
The 35-nation ITER — born out of U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s 1985 meeting after decades of Cold War tensions — has no way of removing a member gone rogue; there’s no path to kicking Russia out of the experiment without torpedoing the entire scheme.
The €44 billion project aims to test nuclear fusion — a process occurring in the center of stars — as a viable source of carbon-free energy that’s minimally radioactive. By injecting hot plasma that reaches 150 million degrees Celsius into a deviceand confining it with magnetic fields, hydrogen nuclei fuse into a helium nucleus and additional neutrons, releasing huge amounts of energy.
The EU shoulders around half of ITER’s costs and manages its participation through the bloc’s Barcelona-based Fusion 4 Europe (F4E) agency; India, Japan, China, Russia, South Korea and the U.S. each have a roughly 9 percent share.
As an active participant in ITER, Russia still has around 50 staff, including engineers, working onsite.
Flags of participant nations fly outside the ITER complex | Photo by Victor Jack/POLITICO
Immediately after Moscow launched its full-scale assault on Ukraine in February, the project was left in a tight spot, especially as Russian government representatives form part of the high-level decision-making board, the ITER Council, alongside their European and American counterparts.
“It’s a difficult balance between condemning a member and facing the consequences for the project,” said ITER Communication Officer Sabina Griffith, who adds that there were initially intensive discussions about how to respond. Staff even briefly discussed putting a banner on the project’s website condemning the war, before scrapping the idea.
Even if “the organization itself is apolitical … many people were questioning” what to do after the invasion began, according to ITER’s chief engineer Alain Bécoulet, who added that there was “a lot of sadness” among the staff.
“The political situation so far is stable, [with] all members … declaring that they want to continue to work together,” he said, adding that the first ITER Council meeting after the invasion in June was “very constructive.”
ITER Council members again “reaffirmed their strong belief in the value of the ITER mission” when they met at the site for their latest gathering in October.
The experiment — over budget and over deadline — has already had its fair share of controversies. France’s nuclear safety authority in January suspended the assembly of the fusion reactor over safety concerns. F4E has been plagued by accusations of a high-pressure and overwork culture that critics have linked to at least one suicide.
Vladimir Tronza | Photo by Victor Jack/POLITICO
Unlike Geneva-based particle physics laboratory CERN — a collaborative research center that suspended its ties with Russia after the war began — ITER is an international agreement like the U.N., making it hard to suspend Moscow, said Bécoulet.
That’s because up to 90 percentof the funding comes not in the form of cash but “in-kind” contributions of equipment, with participant countries each manufacturing a one-of-a-kind bespoke piece of the overall reactor that is then put together like a giant puzzle.
While the set-up was designed to create specialized fusion expertise across the world and stimulate domestic manufacturing, it now means that if one member doesn’t deliver a part, the entire project could collapse, wasting billions.
Even if they wanted to, countries couldn’t formally kick Russia out of the project, as there’s no clause in ITER’s constitution that would allow them to do so— instead, every other country would have to pull out.
Going nuclear
But that doesn’t mean the project hasn’t been impacted by Russia’s war.
For one, Western sanctions and Moscow’s counter-sanctions have made it a minefield to procure Russian-made parts, according to Bécoulet.
“It turns out 2022 is one very important year in terms of Russian deliveries” for the project, he said, with Moscow producing crucial parts including busbars — aluminum bars feeding the reactor with a huge electric current — and a 200-ton ring-shaped magnet that shapes the plasma and keeps it suspended in the reactor, called a poloidal field coil.
Transporting the busbars by truck and the field coil — which is on its way from St. Petersburg to Marseille — by ship required “more paperwork, more justification to explain to the various European countries that no, we are not subject to sanctions — we have derogations,” he said. The “painful” process delayed deliveriesby up to two months, he added.
It also left Russian staff in the lurch, including Moscow-born assembly engineer Vladimir Tronza, who’s worked onsite since 2016.
“In the beginning, everyone was like, ‘What’s going to happen? Should we look for another job? Should we pack and go back?’” he said, adding that Russian staff members were initially concerned that Moscow would exit the project.
But Tronza said he hasn’t heard of Russian staff going home, with the “majority not interested to go back” given many have settled in southeastern France.
“Collaboration is important — it’s important to keep the ties and … talk,” he said, adding that the project is “a global good.”
PARIS — A Moroccan secret service agent, identified as Mohamed Belahrech, has emerged as one of the key operators in the Qatar corruption scandal that has shaken the foundations of the European Parliament. His codename is M118, and he’s been running circles around European spy agencies for years.
Belahrech seems at the center of an intricate web that extends from Qatar and Morocco to Italy, Poland and Belgium. He is suspected of having been engaged in intense lobbying efforts and alleged corruption targeting European MEPs in recent years. And it turns out he’s been known to European intelligence services for some time.
Rabat is increasingly in the spotlight, as focus widens beyond the role of Qatar in the corruption allegations of European MEPs, which saw Belgian police seizing equipment and more than €1.5 million in cash in raids across at least 20 homes and offices.
Belgian Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne last week provided a scarcely veiled indication that Morocco was involved in the probe. Speaking to Belgian lawmakers, he referred to “a country that in recent years has already been mentioned … when it comes to interference.” This is understood to refer to Morocco, since Rabat’s security service has been accused of espionage in Belgium, where there is a large diaspora of Moroccans.
According to Italian daily La Repubblica and the Belgian Le Soir, Belahrech is one of the links connecting former MEP Pier Antonio Panzeri to the Moroccan secret service, the DGED. The Italian politician Panzeri is now in jail, facing preliminary charges of corruption in the investigation as to whether Morocco and Qatar bought influence in the European Parliament.
In a cache of Moroccan diplomatic cables leaked by a hacker in 2014 and 2015 (and seen by POLITICO), Panzeri is described as “a close friend” of Morocco, “an influential ally” who is “capable of fighting the growing activism of our enemies at the European Parliament.”
Investigators are now looking at just how close a friend Panzeri was to Morocco. The Belgian extradition request for Panzeri’s wife and daughter, who are also allegedly involved in the corruption scandal, mentions “gifts” from Abderrahim Atmoun, Morocco’s ambassador to Warsaw.
For several years, Panzeri shared the presidency of the joint EU-Morocco parliamentary committee with Atmoun, a seasoned diplomat keen on promoting Morocco’s interests in the Brussels bubble.
But it’s now suspected that Atmoun was taking orders from Belahrech, who is “a dangerous man,” an official with knowledge of the investigation said to Le Soir. It’s under Belahrech’s watch that Panzeri reportedly sealed his association with Morocco’s DGED after failing to get reelected to the Parliament in 2019.
Belharech may also be the key to unraveling one of the lingering mysteries of the Qatar scandal: the money trail. A Belgian extradition request seen by POLITICO refers to an enigmatic character linked to a credit card given to Panzeri’s relatives — who is known as “the giant.” Speculation is swirling as to whether Belahrech could be this giant.
The many lives of a Moroccan spy
Belahrech is no newbie in European spy circles — media reports trace his presence back to several espionage cases over the past decade.
The man from Rabat first caught the authorities’ attention in connection to alleged infiltration of Spanish mosques, which in 2013 resulted in the deportation of the Moroccan director of an Islamic organization in Catalonia, according to Spanish daily El Confidencial.
Belahrech was allegedly in charge of running agents in the mosques at the behest of the DGED, while his wife was suspected of money laundering via a Spain-based travel agency. The network was dismantled in 2015, according to El Mundo.
Not long after, Belahrech reemerged in France, where he played a leading role in a corruption case at Orly airport in Paris.
A Moroccan agent, identified at the time as Mohamed B., allegedly obtained up to 200 confidential files on terrorism suspects in France from a French border officer, according to an investigation published in Libération.
The officer, who was detained and put under formal investigation in 2017, allegedly provided confidential material regarding individuals on terrorist watchlists — and possible people of interest transiting through the airport — to the Moroccan agent in exchange for four-star holidays in Morocco.
French authorities reportedly did not press charges against Belahrech, who disappeared when his network was busted. According to a French official with knowledge of the investigation, Belahrech was cooperating with France at the time by providing intelligence on counterterrorism matters, and was let off for this reason.
Moroccan secret service agents may act as intelligence providers for European agencies while simultaneously coordinating influence operations in those same countries, two people familiar with intelligence services coordination told POLITICO. For that reason, European countries sometimes turn a blind eye to practices that could be qualified as interference, they added, so long as this remains unobtrusive.
Contacted, the intelligence services of France, Spain and Morocco did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
As to Belahrech: Five years after his foray in France, the mysterious M118 is back in the spotlight — raising questions over his ongoing relationship with European intelligence networks.
Argentina took a 3-2 lead against France, the defending champion, at the 2022 World Cup final in Lusail, Qatar, on Sunday. The game had headed into 30 extra minutes in a 2-2 tie.
The anticipated match marked Lionel Messi‘s last World Cup game, as the popular Argentinian athlete announced after his team’s win against Croatia in last week’s semi-finals.
Argentina started off strong in Sunday’s match, and had gained a 2-0 lead over France by half-time. Both Messi and Angel Di Maria scored goals during the first half of the game, with Messi scoring on a 23rd-minute penalty kick after a foul on Di Maria. Thirteen minutes later, Di Maria scored after finishing off a five-pass team move involving a deft flick from Messi. France’s Kylian Mbappé scored his team’s first goal in the 71st minute, and quickly followed up with another.
Di Maria, who started for the first time since sustaining a foot injury during Argentina’s match against Poland in the final round of group games, took the place of Leandro Paredes in the midfield as the team again rolled out a 4-4-2 formation, with Messi leading as one of two forwards. Mbappé started up front for France alongside Olivier Giroud, who had overcome a minor knee injury. Dayot Upamecano and Adrien Rabiot also started after having previously been replaced by Ibrahima Konaté and Youssouf Fofana, respectively, due to illness.
Messi now has 12 World Cup goals — the same as Brazilian icon Pelé — and is the first player to score in the group stage and every round of the knockout stage in a single edition of the tournament.
Kylian Mbappe of France scores the team’s first goal from the penalty spot past Emiliano Martinez of Argentina during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Final match between Argentina and France at Lusail Stadium on December 18, 2022 in Lusail City, Qatar.
RG – E – IVILL / Getty Images
The player’s appearance at the World Cup, for the 26th time, was a record in itself, breaking what was previously a tie with Germany’s Lothar Matthäus. Those matches have been spread over five World Cups, beginning in 2006. Messi’s 12 goals mean he is tied with Pelé in sixth place for most World Cup goals scored by a single player in the tournament’s history.
Among the cheering crowds filling the stands at Lusail stadium on Sunday was French President Emmanuel Macron. About 45 minutes before kickoff, Macron was seen chatting in the VIP section with Swedish striker Zlatan Ibrahimović, who played for four seasons at Paris Saint-Germain, and France midfielder Paul Pogba, who has had to watch the entire World Cup from the sidelines due to an injury.
Pogba scored in the final when France won the 2018 World Cup but was not fit for selection at this tournament. Macron also attended the final four years ago, when France beat Croatia 4-2, and later celebrated with players in the locker room.
The World Cup champions will earn $42 million in prize money for their soccer federation while the losing team in the final will get $30 million from a FIFA prize fund of $440 million.
Not all of the money goes to players, but they are expected to receive a substantial portion. French players such as Kylian Mbappé are in line to be paid a bonus of 554,000 euros (or $586,000) by their federation for winning the final, French sports daily L’Equipe reported.
Third-place team Croatia earned $27 million in prize money and Morocco, which ended in fourth place, will be paid $25 million.
