LISBON, April 23 (Reuters) – Government officials from Brazil are using their president’s first visit to Europe since being elected to raise awareness and fight against the racial discrimination faced by the Brazilian community in Portugal and elsewhere.
Brazil’s minister of racial equality, Anielle Franco, was one of the officials who travelled with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Her mission was to bring discussions about racism to the table.
“We’re not going to be able to solve 523 years of problems in just one visit but I hope we can move forward because that’s why we’re here,” Franco told reporters on Sunday, referring to centuries of oppression faced by Black people.
Franco is the sister of Marielle Franco, a Black councilwoman in Rio de Janeiro who fought for racial justice and was shot dead in 2018.
When elected, Lula said he aimed to attack racism and Brazil’s legacy of slavery. Portuguese vessels carried nearly 6 million enslaved Africans into slavery. Most went to Brazil.
Europe’s top human rights group previously said Portugal had to confront its colonial past and role in the transatlantic slave trade to help fight racism and discrimination in the country today.
“Let’s build a future without forgetting the debts of the past,” Franco wrote on Instagram. “Let’s build a future where cooperation is mutual between countries to seek justice and reparation.”
In a letter addressed to Lula on Sunday, Lisbon-based migrant association Casa do Brasil said cases of discrimination against Brazilians in Portugal were on the rise.
A study by Casa do Brasil showed 91% of Brazilians in Portugal, a community of around 300,000, have faced some sort of discrimination in access to public services.
Franco met Portuguese parliament affairs minister Ana Catarina Mendes on Saturday to discuss policies to tackle racial injustice.
Both governments agreed on a national strategy to combat racism.
“We need to make it happen,” said Franco.
Reporting by Catarina Demony; Editing by Christina Fincher
Portugal-based multimedia correspondent reporting on politics, economics, the environment and daily news. Previous experience in local journalism in the UK., co-founded a project telling the stories of Portuguese-speakers living in London, and edited a youth-led news site.
BOSTON, April 14 (Reuters) – A 21-year-old member of the U.S. Air National Guard accused of leaking top secret military intelligence records online was charged on Friday with unlawfully copying and transmitting classified material.
Jack Douglas Teixeira of North Dighton, Massachusetts, who was arrested by heavily armed FBI agents at his home on Thursday, made his initial appearance in a crowded federal court wearing a brown khaki jumpsuit.
At the hearing, Boston’s top federal national security prosecutor, Nadine Pellegrini, requested that Teixeira be detained pending trial, and a detention hearing was set for Wednesday.
During the brief proceeding, Teixeira said little, answering “yes” when asked whether he understood his right to remain silent.
The judge said Teixeira’s financial affidavit showed he qualified to be represented by a federal public defender, and he appointed one.
After the hearing, three of Teixeira’s family members left the courthouse, with a group of reporters trailing them for several blocks. They entered a car without making any comments.
The leaked documents were believed to be the most serious U.S. security breach since more than 700,000 documents, videos and diplomatic cables appeared on the WikiLeaks website in 2010. The Pentagon has called the leak a “deliberate, criminal act.”
This leak did not come to light until it was reported by the New York Times last week even though the documents were posted on a social media website weeks earlier.
U.S. President Joe Biden said on Friday he ordered investigators to determine why the alleged leaker had access to the sensitive information, which included records showing purported details of Ukrainian military vulnerabilities and embarrassed Washington by revealing its spying on allies.
Fallout from the case has roiled Washington. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer has requested a briefing for all 100 senators next week while Republican House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy vowed to investigate.
“The Biden administration has failed to secure classified information,” McCarthy said on Twitter. “Through our committees, Congress will get answers as to why they were asleep at the switch.”
FBI agents arrest Jack Teixeira, an employee of the U.S. Air Force National Guard, in connection with an investigation into the leaks online of classified U.S. documents, outside a residence in this still image taken from video in North Dighton, Massachusetts, U.S., April 13, 2023. WCVB-TV via ABC via REUTERS
Biden said he was taking steps to tighten security. “While we are still determining the validity of those documents, I have directed our military and intelligence community to take steps to further secure and limit distribution of sensitive information,” he said in a statement.
MORE CHARGES EXPECTED
A criminal complaint made public on Friday charges Teixeira with one count of violating the Espionage Act related to the unlawful copying and transmitting of sensitive defense material, and a second charge related to the unlawful removal of defense material to an unauthorized location.
A conviction on the Espionage Act charge carries up to 10 years in prison.
The charges are connected to just one leaked document so far, a classified record that described the status of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and included details about troop movements on a particular date.
Experts expect more charges as investigators examine each leaked document. Teixeira could also face more counts depending on the number of times he separately uploaded and transmitted each document.
“They are going to pick the ones (documents), I would imagine, that foreign governments have already seen,” said Stephanie Siegmann, the former national security chief for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Boston and now a partner with the Hinckley Allen law firm.
In a sworn statement, an FBI agent said Teixeira had held a top secret security clearance since 2021 and also had sensitive compartmented access to other highly classified programs.
Since May 2022, the FBI said, Teixeira has been serving as an E-3/airman first class in the Air National Guard and has been stationed at Otis Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts.
Siegmann said one lingering question is why a 21-year-old National Guardsman held such a top-level security clearance.
“That’s an issue that Department of Defense needs to now deal with,” she said. “Why would he be entitled to these documents about the Russia-Ukrainian conflict?”
Reuters has reviewed more than 50 of the documents, labeled “Secret” and “Top Secret,” but has not independently verified their authenticity. The number of documents leaked is likely to be over 100.
Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch in Washington and Tim McLaughlin in Boston
Editing by Don Durfee and Alistair Bell
Sarah N. Lynch is the lead reporter for Reuters covering the U.S. Justice Department out of Washington, D.C. During her time on the beat, she has covered everything from the Mueller report and the use of federal agents to quell protesters in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, to the rampant spread of COVID-19 in prisons and the department’s prosecutions following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
UNITED NATIONS, April 3 (Reuters) – Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges, is likely to brief an informal meeting of the U.N. Security Council this week, according to a note seen by Reuters on Monday.
Russia, which holds the monthly rotating presidency of the 15-member body for April, told council members in a note that it plans to hold an informal meeting on Wednesday on Ukraine, focused on “evacuating children from conflict zone.”
“Participants will hear ‘first hand’ information from the Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights of the Russian Federation, as well as from children evacuated from the conflict area,” read the note.
The commissioner is Maria Lvova-Belova. The International Criminal Court (ICC) last month issued an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin and Lvova-Belova, accusing them of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine, as well as the unlawful transfer of people to Russia from Ukraine since Moscow invaded on Feb. 24, 2022.
“They cannot invite a credible briefer because they do not have any credibility on this issue,” Britain’s Deputy U.N. Ambassador James Kariuki told Reuters in a statement. “Russian leaders have been charged by the ICC with unlawfully deporting children from Ukraine to Russia. That is a war crime.”
Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said on Monday that the meeting briefers would be announced shortly. Such meetings are held at U.N. headquarters, but not in the Security Council chamber, and briefings can be done virtually.
‘APRIL FOOL’S JOKE’
Moscow has not concealed a program under which it has brought thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia but presents it as a humanitarian campaign to protect orphans and children abandoned in the conflict zone.
Nebenzia told reporters last month that the informal meeting of Security Council members to be held on Wednesday had been planned long before the ICC announcement and it was not intended to be a rebuttal of the charges against Putin and Lvova-Belova.
While a feature of Russia’s presidency, members do not need to be the rotating monthly president to hold such meetings.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is due to travel to New York to chair formal Security Council meetings later in the month on the Middle East and on “effective multilateralism through the defense of the principles of the U.N. Charter.”
The 193-member U.N. General Assembly has criticized Russia for violating the founding U.N. Charter by invading its neighbor and called for a “comprehensive, just and lasting peace” in line with the principles of the U.N. Charter.
Given Russia’s Security Council presidency started on April 1, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told reporters on Monday: “It’s like an April Fool’s joke … We expect that they will behave professionally.”
“But we also expect that they will use their seat to spread disinformation and to promote their own agenda as it relates to Ukraine, and we will stand ready to call them out at every single moment that they attempt to do that,” she said.
Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Don Durfee and Bill Berkrot
Poland pledges more MiG jets for Kyiv during Zelenskiy visit
Zelenskiy cites difficult situation for Kyiv’s forces in Bakhmut
France’s Macron in China to nudge it to help end Russia’s war
KYIV, April 5 (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said during a trip to Warsaw on Wednesday that Poland would help form a coalition of Western powers to supply warplanes to Kyiv, adding that Ukrainian troops were still fighting for Bakhmut in the east but could withdraw if they risked being cut off.
Neighbouring Poland is a close ally of Ukraine and helped galvanise support in the West to supply main battle tanks to Kyiv. During Zelenskiy’s visit, Poland announced it would send 10 more MiG fighter jets on top of four provided earlier.
“Just as your (Polish) leadership proved itself in the tank coalition, I believe that it will manifest itself in the planes coalition,” Zelenskiy said in a speech on a square in Warsaw.
Earlier in the day, Zelenskiy said Ukrainian troops faced a really difficult situation in Bakhmut and the military would take “corresponding” decisions to protect them if they risk being encircled by Russian invasion forces.
Ukrainian forces in Bakhmut sometimes advanced a little only to be knocked back, Zelenskiy said, but remained inside the city.
“We are in Bakhmut and the enemy does not control it,” Zelenskiy said.
BOMBARDMENT
Bakhmut, in Ukraine’s mainly Russian-occupied Donetsk province, has proven one of the bloodiest and longest battles of Russia’s invasion, now in its 14th month. Kyiv’s forces have held out against a Russian onslaught with heavy losses on both sides and the city, a mining and transport hub, reduced to ruin after months of street fighting and bombardment.
“For me, the most important is not to lose our soldiers and of course if there is a moment of even hotter events and the danger we could lose our personnel because of encirclement – of course the corresponding correct decisions will be taken by generals there,” Zelenskiy said.
He appeared to be referring to the idea of withdrawing.
However, Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Malyar said later in that the situation at the front was “completely under control” despite repeated Russian attempts to take Bakhmut and other cities in the east.
Reuters could not verify the battlefield reports.
Ukrainian military commanders have stressed the importance of holding Bakhmut and other cities and inflicting losses on Russian troops before an anticipated counter-offensive against them in the coming weeks or months.
[1/6] Ukrainian service member, Naza, 21, commander from 28th mechanised brigade repositions his machine gun during a fire exchange at the frontline, amid Russia?s attack on Ukraine in the region of Bakhmut, Ukraine, April 5, 2023. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach
Mercenaries from the Wagner group – who have spearheaded the assault on Bakhmut – said at the weekend they had captured the city centre, a claim dismissed by Kyiv.
The U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War said the Wagner fighters had made advances in Bakhmut and were likely to continue trying to consolidate control of the city centre and push westward through dense urban neighbourhoods.
PLAYING THE CHINA CARD
French President Emmanuel Macron, meanwhile, was visiting China after he and U.S. President Joe Biden agreed they would try to engage Beijing to hasten the end of the Russian assault on Ukraine.
China has called for a comprehensive ceasefire and described its position on the conflict as “impartial”, even though the Chinese and Russian presidents announced a “no limits” partnership shortly before the invasion.
Both Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, due in Beijing shortly after him, have said they want to persuade China to use its influence over Russia to bring peace in Ukraine, or to at least deter Beijing from directly supporting Moscow in the conflict.
The U.S. and NATO have said China was considering sending arms to Russia, which Beijing has denied.
‘SHOULDER TO SHOULDER’
Poland has played a big role in persuading Western allies to supply battle tanks and other heavy weapons to Ukraine, which helped Kyiv stem and sometimes reverse Russian advances so far.
“You have stood shoulder to shoulder with us, and we are grateful for it,” Zelenskiy said after Polish President Andrzej Duda presented him with Poland’s highest award, the Order of the White Eagle.
Duda said Warsaw was also working to secure additional security guarantees for Ukraine at a NATO summit to be held in the Lithuania in July.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told state TV that Moscow needed to maintain relations with Washington even though American supplies of weapons to Ukraine meant “we are really in a hot phase of the war”.
In addition to MiG-29s, Kyiv has also pressed NATO for F-16 jet fighters but Duda’s foreign policy adviser, Marcin Przydacz, said Poland would not decide soon on whether to send any.
Reporting by Pavel Polityuk with additional reporting by Ron Popeski, Mike Stone, Alan Charlish, Pawel Florkiewicz and Tom Balmforth; writing by Angus MacSwan, Mark Heinrich and Idrees Ali; editing by Philippa Fletcher, Nick Macfie and Grant McCool
LAKE SILS, Switzerland, March 14 (Reuters) – David Vencl emerged from the depths of Switzerland’s Lake Sils on Tuesday after a record dive beneath the ice to a depth of more than 50 meters without a wetsuit.
The 40-year-old Czech diver’s record vertical plunge to 52.1 meters in a single breath follows his entry into the Guinness World Records book for swimming the length of a frozen Czech lake in 2021.
Vencl dived through a hole in the ice then retrieved a sticker from a depth of 50 meters to prove his feat before re-emerging through the same hole. He spat some blood, sat down for a minute and then opened a bottle of champagne. A later visit to the hospital confirmed there was nothing serious.
[1/3] Czech freediver David Vencl dives to 52 metres under the ice of Lake Sils in one breath and wearing only a swimsuit in this picture taken from a video in Sils near St. Moritz, Switzerland March 14, 2023. David Vencl Organisation/Handout via REUTERS
The Swiss plunge in temperatures of between 1 and 4 degrees Celsius took him 1 minute 54 seconds, his promoter Pavel Kalous said, which was a bit slower than expected.
“He kind of enjoyed it but he admits he was a little more nervous than usual and he had some problems with breathing,” he told Reuters.
“There is nothing difficult for him to be in cold water… Lack of oxygen is something normal for him. But this was completely different because it’s really difficult to work with the pressure in your ears in cold water,” he added.
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“If you combine all these three things: cold water, lack of oxygen and the problem with working with pressure, it’s something very unique,” he added.
Reporting by Denis Balibouse in Lake Sils, Switzerland
Writing by Emma Farge
Editing by Matthew Lewis
DUBAI, March 4 (Reuters) – Worried parents protested in Iran’s capital Tehran and other cities on Saturday over a wave of suspected poison attacks that have affected schoolgirls in dozens of schools, according to Iranian news agencies and social media videos.
The so-far unexplained illnesses have affected hundreds of schoolgirls in recent months. Iranian officials believe the girls may have been poisoned and have blamed Tehran’s enemies.
The country’s health minister has said the girls have suffered “mild poison” attacks and some politicians have suggested the girls could have been targeted by hardline Islamist groups opposed to girls’ education.
Iran’s interior minister said on Saturday investigators had found “suspicious samples” that were being studied.
“In field studies, suspicious samples have been found, which are being investigated… to identify the causes of the students’ illness, and the results will be published as soon as possible,” the minister, Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, said in a statement carried by the official news agency IRNA.
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Sickness affected more than 30 schools in at least 10 of Iran’s 31 provinces on Saturday. Videos posted on social media showed parents gathered at schools to take their children home and some students being taken to hospitals by ambulance or buses.
A gathering of parents outside an Education Ministry building in western Tehran on Saturday to protest over the illnesses turned into an anti-government demonstration, according to a video verified by Reuters.
“Basij, Guards, you are our Daesh,” protesters chanted, likening the Revolutionary Guards and other security forces to the Islamic State group.
Similar protests were held in two other areas in Tehran and other cities including Isfahan and Rasht, according to unverified videos.
The outbreak of schoolgirl sickness comes at a critical time for Iran’s clerical rulers, who have faced months of anti-government protests sparked by the death of a young Iranian woman in the custody of the morality police who enforce strict dress codes.
Social media posts in recent days have shown photos and videos of girls who have fallen ill, feeling nauseaous or suffering heart palpitations. Others complained of headaches. Reuters could not verify the posts.
The United Nations human rights office in Geneva called on Friday for a transparent investigation into the suspected attacks and countries including Germany and the United States have voiced concern.
Iran rejected what it views as foreign meddling and “hasty reactions” and said on Friday it was investigating the causes of the incidents.
“It is one of the immediate priorities of Iran’s government to pursue this issue as quickly as possible and provide documented information to resolve the families’ concerns and to hold accountable the perpetrators and the causes,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani told state media.
Schoolgirls were active in the anti-government protests that began in September. They have removed their mandatory headscarves in classrooms, torn up pictures of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and called for his death.
Reporting by Dubai newsroom
Editing by Frances Kerry
India’s Adani reopens two cement plants after freight dispute
Truckers believe Hindenburg report was answer to their prayers
Adani says amicable resolution reached after negotiations
DARLAGHAT, India Feb 23 (Reuters) – For truckers transporting cement from Adani’s factories in a hilly north Indian state, a U.S. short-seller’s critical research report on the giant conglomerate was a godsend they say helped them save their livelihoods.
For weeks, around 7,000 truck owners and drivers in India’s Himachal Pradesh resorted to protest rallies against Adani’s Dec. 15 decision to shut two cement plants over a dispute on freight rates. Adani argued the plants were “unviable” at the trucking rates it wanted to slash by around half.
On Monday, the Gautam Adani-led group said it had “amicably resolved” the issue with a 10-12% reduction in rates. Truckers rejoiced, with a union leader in a street address labelling it as a victory after late-night talks with Adani.
The settlement comes four weeks after U.S.-based Hindenburg Research accused Adani of stock manipulation and improper use of tax havens, allegations the group called baseless.
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The Jan. 24 report triggered a $140 billion rout in group’s stocks, sparked regulatory investigations and saw the billionaire Adani slip to 26 on the Forbes global rich list, from third.
While the truckers’ settlement will have only a small impact on the overall Adani empire, it was a big win for the drivers and owners in a state were most people live on around $7 a day.
The report “played a crucial role in our battle against India’s biggest business group, helped mobilize truckers and gain political support,” said Ram Krishan Sharma, one of the lead negotiators for protesting truckers.
Adani negotiators had refused to budge for weeks. So Hindenburg’s report, some truckers believe, was godsent.
Just a day before it was published, many truckers visited a small, revered Hindu temple in Darlaghat which overlooks one of Adani’s cement plants, and offered a traditional semolina sweet offering to a deity as they sought to resolve the dispute.
Bantu Shukla, a protest leader, showed Reuters a photo and video of truckers that day offering prayers inside the temple. Some stood with folded hands, while a person rang a temple bell in a typical Hindu worship ritual.
‘AMICABLE RESOLUTION’
Adani Group did not answer Reuters questions on whether the Hindenburg report’s fallout contributed to its decision in Himachal.
Adani Cements in a statement said it was “grateful” to all stakeholders including the unions, the local state chief minister and other departments, adding the “amicable resolution” was in interest of everyone including the state.
A source familiar with Adani’s negotiation said the group had been under pressure following what it thinks was a “negative campaign” by Adani’s opponents after the Hindenburg report, and the settlement to reopen plants is a relief.
Himachal is ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s staunch rival, the Congress party. After the Hindenburg report, Congress has renewed its claims that Modi for years has unduly favoured Adani. Both Adani and India’s government deny that.
The source added the move will also help Adani signal it can resolve commercial matters in states ruled by Modi’s rivals.
Without citing Hindenburg, the Himachal chief minister’s office on Monday said “we have been successful in resolving the issues” to end the 67-day dispute.
WHATSAPP CHATS, PRAYERS AT TEMPLE
Adani became India’s second largest cement manufacturer when it acquired ACC (ACC.NS) and Ambuja Cements (ABUJ.NS) in a $10.5 billion deal with Swiss giant Holcim (HOLN.S) last year.
In December, it shut plants in the villages of Gagal and Darlaghat in Himachal, saying truckers were charging too much.
The Adani group wanted freight rates to be lowered to around 6 rupees ($0.0725) per tonne per km, from around 11 rupees. Many truckers told Reuters they struggled to make their loan repayments as their incomes shrank after the shutdowns.
As a stalemate worsened, truckers formed WhatsApp groups to coordinate efforts, vent frustration and later share Hindenburg’s impact on Adani companies and stock prices to further drum up support.
One such WhatsApp group chat of around 1,000 truckers, reviewed by Reuters, showed sharing of a local reporter’s video discussing the sharp fall in Adani’s shares and his alleged close ties to Modi.
Although they accepted a small cut in freight rates when Adani agreed to pay 9.3-10.58 rupees per km per tonne, truckers felt they saved their jobs, and prayers at the Hindu temple were organised again this week.
“We felt our deity had accepted our prayers when we saw the fall in the share prices of Adani companies,” protest leader Shukla said. “The Hindenburg report was a gift that saved our businesses.”
(This story has been refiled to remove extraneous word in paragraph 20)
Reporting by Manoj Kumar, Aditya Kalra and Anushree Fadnavis; Editing by Lincoln Feast.
JANDARIS, Syria, Feb 12 (Reuters) – An eerie silence lay over the courtyard of Ramadan al-Suleiman’s nursery in northern Syria on Sunday as he picked his way through smashed cinderblocks, twisted metal and broken plastic swings.
The modest nursery in the town of Jandaris – about 70 km (44 miles) from the city of Aleppo – once hosted 100 toddlers, whose dusty pictures now lay strewn among the debris caused by Monday’s devastating earthquake. Some of those children and teachers would not be coming back, Suleiman said.
“We lost two of the female teachers from the important cadres at the school. We lost seven or eight students that we know of,” he told Reuters.
They were among more than 2,600 people reported so far to have died in the earthquake in opposition-held parts of northern Syria. More than 3,500 were killed across Syria in total and nearly 30,000 in Turkey.
Children’s education in Syria was already hard hit by the war that has raged since 2011. For years, schools would regularly shut because of fighting, mortar fire by rebel groups or air strikes by the Syrian government or Russia.
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The earthquake destroyed more than 115 schools in Syria and damaged hundreds more, according to a United Nations update published Saturday.
More than 100 others were being used as makeshift shelters to host thousands displaced by the earthquake, which brought apartment blocks and even tiny rural homes crashing down on residents’ heads.
Suleiman has been trying to track down some of the nursery children from whose families he has not heard.
“I went around to buildings where I know some of the students live – and 90% of them were destroyed. There are some pupils that I suspect are dead because we cannot reach their families at all,” he said.
Jandaris was particularly devastated, with many concrete buildings pulverised.
Rescuers across Syria, including in the north, have been pulling young children out from under the rubble – some of them miraculously alive even almost a week after the quake, but orphaned.
Others did not make it.
Mohammad Hassan said he still doesn’t know what happened to his seven-year-old daughter Lafeen’s friends and classmates.
“We asked around and discovered that one of her teachers died, may God bless her soul,” Hassan told Reuters as Lafeen played quietly in his lap.
“She is shocked, she asks me to go see if something happened to the kindergarten. I’m telling her nothing happened and I will take you there once it reopens.”
Reporting by Khalil Ashawi; Writing by Maya Gebeily
Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky
BUCHAREST, Feb 2 (Reuters) – The woman from Moldova thought it was love. Internet celebrity Andrew Tate had offered her a new life. They’d even discussed marriage. He asked for only one thing: absolute loyalty.
“You must understand that once you are mine, you will be mine forever,” Tate told her on Feb. 4 last year in one of dozens of WhatsApp messages cited by Romanian prosecutors who allege he trafficked and sexually exploited several women.
Tate, an influencer with millions of online followers, urged the Moldovan woman to join him in Romania. “Nothing bad will happen,” he reassured her on Feb. 9. “But you have to be on my side.”
The following month, Romanian prosecutors say, Tate raped the woman twice in the country while seeking to enlist her in a human-trafficking operation focused on making pornography for the online platform OnlyFans, a site that allows people to sell explicit videos of themselves.
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The allegations and messages are included in a previously unpublished court document, dated Dec. 30 and reviewed by Reuters, which paints the most detailed picture yet of the illicit business allegedly run by Tate, a former kickboxing world champion, and his brother Tristan.
They came to light following the arrest of the brothers on Dec. 29 on charges of forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women.
British-American Andrew Tate, 36, who’s been based mainly in Romania since 2017, and his 34-year-old brother have denied all the allegations against them. Reuters was unable to reach them in police detention for comment.
In response to questions, their attorney Eugen Vidineac said he couldn’t publicly confirm or deny information about the case while the investigation was ongoing. Romania’s anti-organized crime unit also said its prosecutors couldn’t comment on the probe.
Reuters translated the WhatsApp exchanges with the Moldovan women – which appear in Romanian in the court document – back into English, their original language. While accurate, the translation of the Romanian version provided by prosecutors may not be identical to the initial wording.
The brothers used deception and intimidation to bring six women under their control and “transform them into slaves”, prosecutors said in the document. The 61-page file, produced by Bucharest court officials, comprises minutes of a hearing when a judge extended the Tates’ detention plus evidence submitted by the prosecution.
Attorney Vidineac said the brothers’ alleged victims weren’t mistreated, but “lived off the backs of the famous Tates”, according to the court document. “They were joyful and nobody was forcing them to do these things,” he added.
Vidineac acknowledged in the document that Andrew Tate and the Moldovan woman had sex but he said it was consensual and accused her of fabricating the rape claims.
Reuters couldn’t independently corroborate the version of events provided by prosecutors or the defence lawyer, and was unable to reach the six women named in the document for comment. The news organization does not typically identify alleged victims of sexual crimes unless they have chosen to release their names.
Two of the women told Romanian TV station Antena3 on Jan. 11 that they’re not victims and the Tates are innocent. The station identified them only by first names, Beatrice and Iasmina.
“You cannot list me as a victim if I say I am not one,” Beatrice told the station. The four other women, including the Moldovan woman, haven’t publicly commented.
ONLYFANS: WE’VE MONITORED TATE
The allegations facing Tate have put intense focus on a self-described misogynist who has built an online fanbase, particularly among young men, by promoting a lavish, hyper-macho image of driving fast cars and dating beautiful women.
In 2022, he was the world’s eighth-most Googled person, outranked only by figures such as Johnny Depp, Will Smith and Vladimir Putin, according to Google’s analysis.
Prosecutors say the Tates controlled the victims’ OnlyFans’ accounts and earnings amounting to tens of thousands of euros, underlining concerns among some human rights groups about the potential for the exploitation of women on such platforms.
Reuters couldn’t verify the existence of the alleged victims’ OnlyFans accounts.
UK-based OnlyFans has 150 million users who pay “creators” monthly fees of varying amounts for their content, much of it erotic or pornographic, but also in areas such as fitness training and music.
The company, whose 1.5 million creators can earn anything from hundreds of dollars to tens of thousands a month, says on its website it’s “the safest digital media platform”. It was founded in 2016 and grew rapidly during COVID-19 lockdowns.
An OnlyFans spokesperson told Reuters that Andrew Tate “has never had” a creator account or received payments. They said OnlyFans had been monitoring him since early 2022 and taken “proactive measures” to stop him posting or monetizing content, without elaborating on the reasons for the scrutiny or the steps taken.
The spokesperson added that creators as a whole underwent extensive identification checks and that all content was reviewed by the platform, which worked closely with law enforcement. Vidineac declined to comment about the measures taken by OnlyFans against Tate.
HOW I GET WOMEN TO LOVE ME
Andrew Tate’s image has been stoked by a series of contentious comments. He’s compared women to dogs and said they bear some responsibility for being raped. His remarks got him banned from Facebook, Instagram and other leading social media platforms last year.
A spokesperson for Meta said Tate was banned in August 2022 from its Facebook and Instagram platforms for violating its policies, which forbid “gender-based hate, any threats of sexual violence, or threats to share non-consensual intimate imagery”.
Tate said on a podcast in 2021 that he had started a webcam business in Britain that had peaked with 75 women working for him earning $600,000 a month – a sum Reuters was unable to independently verify. He didn’t elaborate in the podcast on what the women did.
Up until last month, his website offered a course costing more than $400 that promised to teach “every step to building a girl who is submissive, loyal and in love with you”.
“THAT IS MY SKILL. To extremely efficiently get women in love with me,” he said on the website. The pages about the course, reviewed by Reuters, were removed in January.
In a separate YouTube video aimed at men who want to make money by putting women on OnlyFans, Tate called the platform “the greatest hustle in the world”. The original date of the video, which was uploaded multiple times, is unclear.
In the court document, lawyer Vidineac said Tate’s online persona was a “virtual character” constructed to gain followers and make money, and had “nothing to do with the real man”.
Tate’s Twitter account, reinstated in November, one month after billionaire Elon Musk bought the platform, protests his innocence to his 4.8 million followers. “They have arrested me to ‘look’ for evidence … which they will not find because it doesn’t exist,” said a Jan. 15 post.
AMERICAN WOMAN ‘VERY AFRAID’
Tate first met the Moldovan woman virtually on Instagram in January 2022 before they met in person in London the following month, and by March she was in Romania, prosecutors said in the court document, which includes WhatsApp exchanges between Feb. 4 and Apr. 8.
Authorities moved on the brothers on Apr. 11, when police raided one of their properties in Bucharest on suspicion that an American woman was being held there against her will.
According to prosecutors, the American woman – another of the alleged six victims – met Tristan Tate online in November 2021, then in person in Miami the following month. They said he lured her to Romania by expressing “false feelings” for her and promising a serious relationship, paid for her plane ticket and said he could help her earn “100K a month” on OnlyFans.
Tristan Tate picked her up at Bucharest airport in a Rolls-Royce on April 5 2022, and took her back to his house, which had two armed guards, the court document said.
He told her she wasn’t a prisoner but said the guards wouldn’t let her outside without his permission, it added. He said it was dangerous for her to leave “because he had enemies”.
There were cameras all over the house, which Tristan Tate monitored remotely, prosecutors said in the document. He once messaged the American to say he could see where she was and what she was doing, they said.
When she moved to another house with four of Andrew Tate’s “girlfriends” she was allowed outside but only if accompanied by other women, said the prosecutors, adding that she was “very afraid” of the brothers.
In the document, Tate’s lawyer said the American woman had a mobile phone, internet access and the freedom to leave the house as she pleased.
The woman has not spoken publicly about the Tates or the prosecutors’ allegations.
Romanian prosecutors said on Jan. 15 that as part of their probe into the suspects they had seized assets worth almost $4 million, including a fleet of luxury cars from Andrew Tate’s compound on the outskirts of Bucharest.
‘SEXUALLY EXPLOITATIVE CONTENT’
The detention of the Tates, along with two Romanian women accused of working for them, has been extended to Feb. 27. Their appeal against that detention was rejected by a court on Wednesday. A judge can order their detention for up to 180 days while the investigation is ongoing, which means it could stretch into late June.
The suspected accomplices, Georgiana Naghel and Luana Radu, controlled the six victims’ OnlyFans and TikTok accounts on behalf of the Tates, skimming off half the revenue and fining women for being late or sniffling on camera, said prosecutors.
The pair threatened to beat the women up if they did not do their job, according to the court document.
Naghel and Radu have denied all the allegations against them. Vidineac, who also represents Naghel, and Radu’s lawyer said they couldn’t comment on the case.
The Tates’ operation put women on TikTok to drive traffic to OnlyFans because of its lucrative subscriptions, prosecutors said. Reuters couldn’t independently verify the existence of the TikTok accounts in question.
TikTok said in a statement that Andrew Tate was banned from its platform, and that it had been taking action against videos and accounts related to him that violated its prohibition against “sexually exploitative content”.
The company declined to comment further, citing Romania’s ongoing investigation.
Reporting by Luiza Ilie, Octav Ganea and Andrew R.C. Marshall. Editing by Jason Szep and Pravin Char
ANKARA, Feb 2 (Reuters) – Turkey summoned ambassadors of nine Western countries including the United States and Sweden on Thursday to criticise their decisions to temporarily shut diplomatic missions and issue security alerts following Koran-burning incidents in Europe.
The envoys of Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Britain were also summoned, according to foreign ministry sources in Ankara.
Over the last two weeks, far-right activists burned copies of the Muslim holy book, the Koran, in Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands, acts that prompted Turkey to halt negotiations meant to lift its objections to Sweden and Finland joining NATO.
The European countries have denounced the incidents but some say they cannot prevent them because of free speech rules.
Over the last week, France, Germany, Italy and the United States were among those issuing warnings to their citizens of an increased risk of attacks in Turkey, particularly against diplomatic missions and non-Muslim places of worship.
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Germany, France and the Netherlands were among countries that temporarily closed diplomatic missions in Turkey for security reasons this week. Some cited central Istanbul areas of high concern but did not provide the source of the information.
“Such simultaneous activities do not constitute a proportional and commonsense approach and…only serve the covert agenda of terrorist organizations,” said a foreign ministry source who asked not to be further identified.
The source added that the security of all diplomatic missions is ensured in accordance with international conventions and “allies should cooperate with” Turkish authorities.
The interior minister, Suleyman Soylu, said on Twitter the embassies were waging “a new psychological war” against Turkey.
All 30 NATO members must approve newcomers. Sweden and Finland applied for membership last year in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but ran into surprise resistance from Turkey.
Since then they have sought to win its backing including agreeing to take a harder line domestically against those Turkey says are members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the PKK, designated a terrorist group by Ankara and the European Union.
On Thursday, police in NATO member Norway banned a planned anti-Islam protest including the burning of the Koran for security reasons, hours after the Turkish foreign ministry summoned Oslo’s ambassador to complain.
Diplomatic tensions rose last weekend when Turkey responded to the initial U.S. security alert by warning its citizens against “possible Islamophobic, xenophobic and racist attacks” in the United States and Europe.
The U.S. embassy confirmed its Ambassador Jeffry Flake attended a meeting at Turkey’s foreign ministry on Thursday. Two European diplomatic sources said envoys from Germany, France and the Netherlands were also summoned.
Writing by Jonathan Spicer; Editing by Alison Williams, Peter Graff and Mark Heinrich
Jan 23 (Reuters) – Japanese Prime minister Fumio Kishida pledged on Monday to take urgent steps to tackle the country’s declining birth rate, saying it was “now or never” for one of the world’s oldest societies.
Japan has in recent years been trying to encourage its people to have more children with promises of cash bonuses and better benefits, but it remains one of the most expensive places in the world to raise a child, according to surveys.
Births plunged to a new record low last year, according to official estimates, dropping below 800,000 for the first time – a watershed moment that came eight years earlier than the government had expected.
That most likely precipitated a further population decline in a country where the median age is 49, the highest in the world behind only the tiny city-state of Monaco.
“Our nation is on the cusp of whether it can maintain its societal functions,” Kishida said in a policy speech at the opening of this year’s parliamentary session.
“It is now or never when it comes to policies regarding births and child-rearing – it is an issue that simply cannot wait any longer,” he added.
Kishida said he would submit plans to double the budget for child-related policies by June, and that a new Children and Families government agency to oversee the issue would be set up in April.
Japan is the third-most-expensive country globally to raise a child, according to YuWa Population Research, behind only China and South Korea, countries also seeing shrinking populations in worrying signs for the global economy.
Other countries are also coming to grips with ageing and shrinking populations. Last week, China reported that its population dropped in 2022 for the first time in 60 years.
Reporting by Sakura Murakami; Editing by John Geddie and Gerry Doyle
MONTEREY PARK, Calif., Jan 23 (Reuters) – Investigators collected 42 bullet casings from the scene of one of California’s bloodiest mass shootings as they sought clues on Monday to what drove an elderly gunman to open fire in a dance hall he had frequented, killing 11 people, before taking his own life.
Police identified Huu Can Tran, 72, as the lone suspect in a massacre that unfolded Saturday night in the midst of a Chinese Lunar New Year celebration in the town of Monterey Park, a hub of the Asian-American community just east of downtown Los Angeles.
Authorities said he drove to another dance hall where a second, would-be attack was thwarted and later shot himself to death in his parked getaway vehicle as police closed in to make an arrest on Sunday, ending an intense manhunt some 12 hours after the rampage.
Ten people were killed and 10 others wounded when Tran opened fire at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio, a venue popular with older patrons of Asian descent, then drove off. One of the victims hospitalized in critical condition died of his wounds on Monday, Monterey Park Police Chief Scott Wiese told reporters.
All of the dead, six women and five men, were in their 50s, 60s and 70s, the coroner’s office said.
Even as Los Angeles-area police worked through a second full day of their investigation, seven people were reported slain in a separate, mass shooting in the northern California coastal town of Half Moon May on Monday. read more
In another incident, one person died and seven were injured in Oakland, near San Francisco, in a shooting between several individuals, Oakland Police Department reported.
At a news briefing on Monday, Hilda Solis, a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, called Saturday’s Monterey Park gun violence the deadliest mass shooting on record in Los Angeles County, the most populous in the United States and home to some 10 million residents.
About 20 minutes after the attack, Tran barged into a second dance club, the Lai Lai Ballroom & Studio in the neighboring community of Alhambra, where an employee wrestled away the intruder’s semi-automatic assault-style pistol before any shots could be fired, officials said.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna credited Brandon Tsay, the operator of the family-owned club, as a “hero” for single-handedly disarming the gunman and preventing further bloodshed.
“That moment, it was primal instinct,” Tsay recounted in a New York Times interview, saying that the gunman fled the scene after a 90-second struggle. “Something happened there. I don’t know what came over me.”
Tran was not seen again until Sunday morning, when he had shot himself behind the wheel of his van, found parked in the city of Torrance, south of Los Angeles, as police surrounded his vehicle.
Luna said investigators, assisted by the FBI and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), had recovered 42 spent shell casings and a large-capacity ammunition magazine from the Star studio.
[1/17] People mourn outside the entrance of the Star Ballroom Dance Studio after a mass shooting during Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations in Monterey Park, California, U.S. January 23, 2023. REUTERS/David Swanson
GUNS AND AMMO SEIZED
He said the search of the suspect’s mobile home in a gated senior-living community in the town of Hemet, about 80 miles east of Los Angeles, turned up a rifle, various electronic devices and items “that lead us to believe the suspect was manufacturing homemade” weapons silencers.
Police also seized hundreds of rounds of ammunition from the dwelling, and a handgun was recovered from the white cargo van where the suspect took his own life, Luna said.
Authorities on Monday said a motive for the shooting remained a mystery.
Wiese said authorities were aware of unconfirmed reports that the violence may have been precipitated by jealousy or relationship issues, adding, “it’s part of what our investigators are diligently looking into.”
The sheriff said there was no immediate evidence that the gunman was related to any of his victims. Luna told reporters Tran had a “limited” past criminal history, including a 1990 arrest for unlawful possession of a firearm.
Hemet police said in a statement on Monday that Tran had come to the department twice in early January alleging “past fraud, theft and poisoning allegations involving his family” dating back 10 to 20 years, and had promised to return with documentation of his claims but never did.
Tran had an active trucking license and had owned a company called Tran’s Trucking Inc with a post office box address in Monterey Park, according to online records.
He had lived in the Los Angeles area since at least the 1990s and moved to the mobile home in Hemet in 2020, address records showed. A neighbor in his gated community described him as “meek” in an interview Monday.
But Adam Hood, who rented a home from Tran in the Los Angeles area, told Reuters he knew his landlord to be an aggressive, suspicious person with few friends.
But Hood said Tran, with whom he often conversed in Mandarin, enjoyed ballroom dancing, and was a longtime patron of the Star Ballroom, though he complained that others there were talking behind his back.
“He was a good dancer in my opinion,” Hood said. “But he was distrustful of the people at the studio, angry and distrustful. I think he just had enough.”
The coroner’s office on Monday confirmed the names of four victims, Valentino Alvero, 68 and three women – My Nhan, 65, Lilan Li, 63, and Xiujuan Yu, 57.
Reporting by Tim Reid in Monterey Park; Writing by Gabriella Borter; Additional reporting by Rich McKay, Brendan O’Brien, Brad Brooks, Jonathan Allen, Joseph Ax, Dan Whitcomb, Gabriella Borter and Timothy Gardner; Editing by Stephen Coates, Nick Zieminski and David Gregorio
Jan 23 (Reuters) – A 72-year-old man fatally shot 11 people celebrating the Lunar New Year at a ballroom near Los Angeles on Saturday night, according to the county sheriff.
Here is what is known so far about the weapons involved and the regulations that govern them:
WHAT GUNS WERE USED?
The shooter, identified as Huu Can Tran, used a semi-automatic pistol with an “extended large-capacity magazine” attached to it to attack people in the Star Dance Ballroom Studio in Monterey Park, California, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna. This is a type of handgun that fires one bullet with each pull of the trigger and automatically loads the next cartridge from the magazine.
Luna said the gun was a semi-automatic 9 mm MAC-10, which is a civilian type of pistol based on a fully automatic military-use submachine gun. He did not disclose the capacity of the magazine attached, although under California law a “large-capacity magazine” is defined as one that holds more than 10 rounds.
The shooter used a second gun to kill himself after fleeing the ballroom. Luna said that one was a Norinco 7.62 x 25mm handgun.
Investigators also found a .308-caliber rifle at the shooter’s home, along with hundreds of rounds of ammunition.
HOW WERE THE GUNS OBTAINED?
Officials said they were still investigating how and when Tran obtained the weapons. Luna said the Norinco handgun was registered to the shooter.
WHAT GUN REGULATIONS APPLY?
California has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the United States, the country with the highest rate of private gun ownership in the world.
The state bans many kinds of guns that are legal in other states, and obtaining a required California gun license is relatively difficult. However, a California resident intent on breaking the law can illegally obtain banned weapons from parts of the country where guns are sold more freely.
Semi-automatic pistols are the most widely carried guns in the country, and some kinds are legal in California. But the state bans what it defines as “assault weapons,” which is determined by the gun’s features and includes semiautomatic MAC-10 guns. A Californian can continue to legally possess an assault weapon that was legally owned and registered before the 1990s or early 2000s, depending on the type.
The assault weapons ban was ruled unconstitutional and thrown out by a federal judge in 2021, but remains in effect while legal appeals are heard.
California also bans the buying and selling of large-capacity magazines, although a Californian can legally continue to possess any large-capacity magazine he or she obtained before Jan. 1, 2000.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that Americans have a fundamental right to have weapons, including many kinds of guns, at home and, in a landmark ruling last year, in public for self-defense under the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment “right to keep and bear arms.”
Reported by Jonathan Allen; Edited by Colleen Jenkins and Bradley Perrett
Jan 13 (Reuters) – At least one administrator at the Virginia school where a 6-year-old boy shot a teacher last week was aware the boy may have had a gun, but no weapon was found when the boy’s backpack was searched before the shooting, school officials said on Friday.
Superintendent George Parker told parents at Rickneck Elementary School during a virtual meeting on Thursday that a school administrator learned the boy may have had a gun, according to Michelle Price, a spokeswoman for Newport News Public Schools. The information was first reported by Virginia’s WAVY TV.
The administrator has not been identified nor is it clear exactly how they learned the boy may have had a gun.
Once alerted, school officials searched the boy’s backpack, but did not find the gun. Why the gun was not found at that time has not been explained. The shooting took place about 2-1/2 hours after the boy’s backpack was searched.
Abigail Zwerner, a 25-year-old teacher, was shot a week ago by the young student. Police hailed the teacher as a hero earlier this week for managing to evacuate students from her classroom even after she was shot. Police on Friday said Zwerner’s last known condition was stable.
The boy who shot Zwerner was in the custody of the Newport News Department of Human Services, police said.
Police said the investigation is continuing and once complete, they will present findings to the Commonwealth’s Attorney in Newport News, who would make any decision regarding possible charges against the boy’s mother.
The mother legally purchased the 9 mm Taurus handgun, police have said, but could face misdemeanor charges if it’s found she did not properly secure the weapon in her home.
The boy took the handgun from his home, placed it in his backpack and removed it while Zwerner was teaching class, Newport News Police Chief Steve Drew said earlier this week. The boy pointed the gun at the teacher and fired once. Zwerner was shot through the hand and into the chest.
After the shot, another woman who works at the school rushed into the classroom and held the boy down while Zwerner escorted the estimated 16 to 20 students out, Drew said. When police arrived, they found the gun on the floor.
Parker previously told reporters the school was unprepared for a 6-year-old bringing a gun to school and firing it, saying this marked only the third time since 1970 that a child aged 6 or younger had discharged a weapon at a U.S. school.
The Newport News school board on Thursday announced that metal detectors would be installed in every school in the city following the shooting.
Reporting by Brad Brooks in Lubbock, Texas; Editing by Cynthia Osterman
LOS ANGELES, Jan 13 (Reuters) – Singer Lisa Marie Presley will be laid to rest at Graceland, the Memphis mansion she inherited from her father Elvis Presley, the “King of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” a representative for her daughter said on Friday.
Presley died on Thursday at the age of 54 after being rushed to a Los Angeles area hospital after reportedly suffering cardiac arrest at her home.
“Lisa Marie’s final resting place will be at Graceland, next to her beloved son Ben,” said a representative for her 33-year-old daughter Riley Keough, an actress. She is also survived by twin 14-year-old daughters Finley and Harper.
Two days earlier, Lisa Marie Presley had appeared with her mother Priscilla Presley at the Golden Globe Awards, where actor Austin Butler won the best actor award for portraying her father in the film “Elvis” and paid tribute to both women in his acceptance speech.
“My heart is completely shattered for Riley, Finley, Harper and Priscilla at the tragic and unexpected loss of Lisa Marie,” Butler said in a statement on Friday.
“I am eternally grateful for the time I was lucky enough to be near her bright light and will forever cherish the quiet moments we shared. Her warmth, her love and her authenticity will always be remembered.”
Benjamin Keough died in 2020 at age 27, a death ruled a suicide by the Los Angeles County coroner.
Lisa Marie Presley remembered her son in an essay this year for People magazine that she posted on Instagram, describing herself as “destroyed” by his death.
As the only daughter of Elvis Presley, Lisa Marie became the owner of her father’s Graceland mansion, a popular tourist attraction in the city. She was nine when Elvis died there of heart failure in August 1977, aged 42.
Elvis Presley and other members of his family are buried at Graceland’s Meditation Garden.
Tributes to Lisa Marie Presley continued to pour in on Friday.
“Over the last year, the entire Elvis movie family and I have felt the privilege of Lisa Marie’s kind embrace,” Baz Luhrmann, the director of “Elvis”, said on Instagram.
“Her sudden, shocking loss has devastated people all around the world.”
In the celebrity spotlight since her birth, Lisa Marie began her own music career with a 2003 debut album “To Whom It May Concern.”
That was followed by 2005’s “Now What,” and both hit the top 10 of the Billboard 200 album chart. A third album, “Storm and Grace,” was released in 2012.Singer Billy Idol posted a picture of them together on Twitter and said she had been “very loving 2 me”, adding, “In Memphis in the 90’s she gave me a viewing of the private sections of Graceland which was very special.”
Lisa Marie Presley is survived by her mother, daughter Riley Keough, and 14-year-old twin daughters Harper and Finley Lockwood.
Additional reporting by Lisa Richwine and Dan Whitcomb; Editing by David Gregorio and Clarence Fernandez
Germany, U.S. agree to send combat vehicles to Ukraine
KYIV/BAKHMUT, Ukraine, Jan 5 (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin called on Thursday for a 36-hour ceasefire in Ukraine to mark Orthodox Christmas, a move rejected by Kyiv which said there could be no truce until Russia withdraws its troops from occupied land.
The United States and Germany made a joint announcement to supply Ukraine with armoured combat vehicles, a boost for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy who has urged Western allies to provide his forces with armour and heavy weapons for months.
Fifty Bradley Fighting Vehicles would be included in a $2.8 billion U.S. package. Germany said it was sending Marder Infantry Fighting Vehicles, following an announcement by France on Wednesday it was sending AMX-10 RC armoured combat vehicles.
The Kremlin said Putin had ordered Russian troops to cease firing from midday on Friday along the entire front, in response to a call for a Christmas truce from Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, a close Putin ally.
“Proceeding from the fact that a large number of citizens professing Orthodoxy live in the areas of hostilities, we call on the Ukrainian side to declare a ceasefire and allow them to attend services on Christmas Eve, as well as on Christmas Day,” Putin said in his order.
Russia’s Orthodox Church observes Christmas on Jan. 7. Ukraine’s main Orthodox Church has rejected the authority of the Moscow patriarch, and many Ukrainian believers have shifted their calendar to celebrate Christmas on Dec. 25 as in the West.
A genuine truce in Ukraine would be the first since May, when the sides halted intense fighting in the devastated port of Mariupol to allow Ukrainian forces to surrender there.
On Thursday night, Zelenskiy accused Russia of wanting to use a truce as cover to stop Ukrainian advances in the strategic industrial area and eastern frontline known as the Donbas.
“They now want to use Christmas as a cover, albeit briefly, to stop the advances of our boys in Donbas and bring equipment, ammunitions and mobilised troops closer to our positions,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address, speaking pointedly in Russian rather than Ukrainian.
‘CYNICAL’ SAYS U.S.
In Washington, U.S. President Joe Biden, the State Department and the Pentagon greeted Putin’s order with scepticism. Biden said he thought Putin was “trying to find some oxygen”.
Ukraine has scored some battlefield successes in the past few months although Russia has kept up a barrage of missile and drone strikes on Ukraine’s energy plants, knocking out power to millions of people at times in the middle of winter. Russia has denied targeting civilians since its invasion began Feb. 24 but the strikes included Christmas Day and New Year’s attacks on civilian infrastructure, according to Kyiv.
“There’s one word that best described that and it’s ‘cynical’,” U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a press briefing of Putin’s ceasefire order.
“Our concern … is that the Russians would seek to use any temporary pause in fighting to rest, to refit, to regroup, and ultimately to re-attack,” Price said.
Putin’s ceasefire also appeared to face challenges from Russia’s own side. Denis Pushilin, Russian-installed leader in Ukraine’s Donetsk province, scene of the heaviest fighting, wrote on Telegram: “There can be no talk of any truce!”
He said Putin’s order involved only halting offensive operations.
Earlier on Thursday, the Kremlin said Putin had told Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan that Moscow was ready for peace talks – but only under the condition that Ukraine “take into account the new territorial realities”, a reference to Kyiv acknowledging Moscow’s annexation of Ukrainian territory. Ukrainian presidential adviser Mikhailo Podolyak called that demand “fully unacceptable”.
MEAT GRINDER
Ten months after Putin ordered what he calls a “special military operation” to protect Russian security, Moscow and Kyiv have entered the new year with hardened diplomatic positions.
Putin has shown no willingness to discuss relinquishing his territorial conquests, despite mounting losses among his troops.
While some of the heaviest fighting of the war continues, the front line has been static since the last big Russian retreat in mid-November. The worst battles have taken place near the eastern city of Bakhmut, which both sides have compared to a meat grinder.
Ukraine says Russia has lost thousands of troops despite seizing scant ground in months of futile waves of assaults on Bakhmut. Russia says the city is key to its aim to capture the rest of Donetsk province, one of four partially occupied regions it claims to have annexed.
Near the front, Reuters saw explosions from outgoing artillery and smoke filling the sky.
“We are holding up. The guys are trying to hold up the defence,” said Viktor, a 39-year-old Ukrainian soldier driving an armoured vehicle out of Soledar, a salt-mining town on Bakhmut’s northeastern outskirts.
Most civilians have been evacuated from Bakhmut. Those who have stayed survive under near constant bombardment, with no heat or electricity. Parts of the city are a wasteland, with sections of residential apartment blocks flattened into concrete piles.
Reporting by Reuters bureaux; Writing by Peter Graff and Grant McCool; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Cynthia Osterman
NEW YORK, Jan 3 (Reuters) – Southwest Airlines (LUV.N) has been sued by a passenger who said it failed to provide refunds to passengers left stranded when an operational meltdown led the carrier to cancel more than 15,000 flights late last month.
In a proposed class action filed on Dec. 30 in New Orleans federal court, Eric Capdeville accused Southwest of breach of contract after a fierce winter storm that swept across the United States shortly before Christmas upended the carrier’s schedule.
Though Southwest has promised to reimburse passengers for expenses, Capdeville said it offered only a credit to him and his daughter after scrapping their Dec. 27 flight to Portland, Oregon from New Orleans and being unable to book alternative travel.
Affected passengers “cannot use their airline tickets through no fault of their own and they are not getting the benefit of their bargain with defendant,” the complaint said.
Capdeville, a Marrero, Louisiana resident, is seeking damages for passengers on Southwest flights canceled since Dec. 24, and who did not receive refunds or expense reimbursements.
In a statement on Tuesday, Southwest had no comment on the lawsuit, but said it had “several high priority efforts underway to do right by our customers, including processing refunds from canceled flights, and reimbursing customers for expenses incurred as a result of the irregular operations.”
Capdeville’s lawyer did not immediately respond to requests for additional comment.
The meltdown at Dallas-based Southwest has been blamed on staffing shortages and outdated flight scheduling software.
Southwest has said it would reimburse affected passengers for reasonable expenses such as last-minute hotel, rental car and dining costs, but it might take several weeks.
The carrier largely restored normal operations on Dec. 30, several days after other airlines had recovered from the storm.
In a Dec. 29 letter to Southwest Chief Executive Bob Jordan, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg called the disruptions “unacceptable” and said the law requires refunds when carriers cancel flights unless passengers accept rebooking.
The case is Capdeville v Southwest Airlines Co, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana, No. 22-05590.
Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Nick Zieminski
VATICAN CITY, Jan 3 (Reuters) – Six months ago Pope Francis brushed off speculation he was about to resign due to health problems, but even if he had toyed with the idea, he faced one major obstacle: there was already another ex-pope in retirement.
The death on Saturday of Benedict, who in 2013 became the first pontiff in 600 years to step down instead of reigning for life, should make any decision to step down easier on Francis and the Church, which has struggled enough with having “two popes”, let alone three – two retired and one reigning.
It could also prompt the current pontiff to review what happens to future popes who decide to shuffle away from office because of old age rather than holding on until they die.
Francis is now 86, one year older than Benedict was when he retired. Despite needing a cane and a wheelchair, he shows no sign of slowing down. Trips are planned for Africa this month and Portugal in August.
He has made it clear that he would not hesitate to step down someday if his mental or physical health impeded him from leading the 1.3 billion-member Church.
In an interview with Reuters on July 2, he dismissed rumours of imminent resignation. “It never entered my mind,” he said, also denying rumours among diplomats that he had cancer.
The previous month, the Catholic media world and some secular outlets were caught up in a frenzy of unsubstantiated reports and frivolous tweets speculating he would be out within a few months.
But as he now approaches the 10th anniversary of his election in March, and in four years his life’s ninth decade, the chances of resignation will increase.
Church law says a pope can resign but the decision must be without outside pressure, a precaution that harkens back to the centuries when European potentates influenced the papacy.
NO LONGER UNTHINKABLE
[1/2] Pope Francis leads the Mass to mark the World Day of Peace in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, January 1, 2023. Vatican Media/Handout via REUTERS
Now that longer life spans have made papal resignations no longer unthinkable, there have been repeated calls from Church leaders to regulate the role of former pontiffs, in part because of the confusion stemming wrought by two men wearing white living in the Vatican.
Francis told a Spanish newspaper last month that he did not intend to define the juridical status of popes emeritus, although he had previously indicated privately that a Vatican department could script such rules.
Australian Cardinal George Pell, a conservative who was close to Benedict, has written that while a retired pontiff could retain the title of “pope emeritus”, he should return to being a cardinal, and be known as “Cardinal (surname), Pope Emeritus”.
Pell also said a former pontiff should not wear white, as Benedict did, telling Reuters in a 2020 interview that it was important for Catholics to be clear that “there is only one pope”.
Academics and canon lawyers at Italy’s Bologna University who have studied the issue say the Church cannot risk even the appearance of having “two heads or two kings” and have proposed a set of rules.
They say a former pope should not return to being a cardinal, as Pell proposes, but be called “Bishop Emeritus of Rome”.
Francis told Reuters in July that is precisely what he would want to be called.
In that case there might not be any need for new legislation he would then be subject to existing rules covering retired bishops.
Existing rules say bishops emeritus should “avoid every attitude and relationship that could even hint at some kind of parallel authority to that of the diocesan bishop, with damaging consequences for the pastoral life and unity of the diocesan community”.
Although he had retired, Benedict wrote, gave interviews and, unwittingly or not, became a lightning rod for opponents of Pope Francis, either for doctrinal reasons or because they were loath to relinquish the clerical privileges the new pope wanted to dismantle.
Francis told Reuters that he would not stay in the Vatican or return to his native Argentina but live modestly in a home for retired priests in the Italian capital “because it’s my diocese”. He said he would want it to be near a large church so he could spend his final days hearing confessions.
Reporting by Philip Pullella
Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky
WASHINGTON, Jan 3 (Reuters) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will allow retail pharmacies to offer abortion pills in the United States for the first time, the agency said on Tuesday, even as more states seek to ban medication abortion.
The regulatory change will potentially expand abortion access as President Joe Biden’s administration wrestles with how best to protect abortion rights after they were sharply curtailed by the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the landmark Roe v Wade ruling and the state bans that followed.
Pharmacies can start applying for certification to distribute abortion pill mifepristone with one of the two companies that make it, and if successful they will be able to dispense it directly to patients upon receiving a prescription from a certified prescriber.
The FDA had first said it would be making those changes in December 2021 when it announced it would relax some risk evaluation and mitigation strategies, or REMS, on the pill, that had been in place since the agency approved it in 2000 and were lifted temporarily in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The changes included permanently removing restrictions on mail order shipping of the pills and their prescription through telehealth.
The agency finalized the changes on Tuesday after reviewing supplemental applications from Danco Laboratories and GenBioPro, the two companies that make the drug in the United States.
“Under the Mifepristone REMS Program, as modified, Mifeprex and its approved generic can be dispensed by certified pharmacies or by or under the supervision of a certified prescriber,” the agency said on its website on Tuesday.
Mifeprex is the brand name version of mifepristone which, in combination with a second drug called misoprostol that has various uses including miscarriage management, induces an abortion up to 10 weeks into a pregnancy in a process known as medication abortion.
Abortion rights activists say the pill has a long track record of being safe and effective, with no risk of overdose or addiction. In several countries, including India and Mexico, women can buy them without a prescription to induce abortion.
“Today’s news is a step in the right direction for health equity,” Planned Parenthood President Alexis McGill Johnson said in a statement.
“Being able to access your prescribed medication abortion through the mail or to pick it up in person from a pharmacy like any other prescription is a game changer for people trying to access basic health care,” Johnson added.
NO EQUAL ACCESS
The regulatory change will, however, not provide equal access to all people, GenBioPro, which makes the generic version of mifepristone, said in a statement.
Abortion bans, some targeting mifepristone, have gone into effect in more than a dozen states since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to terminating pregnancies when it scrapped the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling last year.
Women in those states could potentially travel to other states to obtain medication abortion.
The president of anti-abortion group SBA Pro-Life America, Marjorie Dannenfelser, said the latest FDA move endangers women’s safety and the lives of unborn children.
“State lawmakers and Congress must stand as a bulwark against the Biden administration’s pro-abortion extremism,” she said in a statement.
FDA records show a small mortality case number associated with mifepristone. As of June 2021, there were reports of 26 deaths linked with the pill out of 4.9 million people estimated to have taken it since it was approved in September 2000.
Retail pharmacies will have to weigh whether or not to offer the pill given the political controversy surrounding abortion, and determine where they can do so.
A spokesperson for CVS Health (CVS.N) said the drugstore chain owner was reviewing the updated REMS “drug safety program certification requirements for mifepristone to determine the requirements to dispense in states that do not restrict the dispensing of medications prescribed for elective termination of pregnancy.”
A spokesperson for Walgreens (WBA.O), one of the largest U.S. pharmacies, said the company was also reviewing the FDA’s regulatory change. “We will continue to enable our pharmacists to dispense medications consistent with federal and state law.”
Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein; Additional reporting by Eric Beech in Washington, Shivani Tanna, Rahat Sandhu, and Kanjyik Ghosh in Bengaluru; Editing by Himani Sarkar
Washington-based correspondent covering U.S. healthcare and pharmaceutical policy with a focus on the Department of Health and Human Services and the agencies it oversees such as the Food and Drug Administration, previously based in Iraq and Egypt.
NEW DELHI, Dec 24 (Reuters) – India has mandated a COVID-19 negative test report for travelers arriving from China, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Thailand, the health minister said on Saturday.
Passengers from those countries would be put under quarantine if they showed symptoms of COVID-19 or tested positive, Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said.
(This story has been refiled to correct grammar in paragraph 2)
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