Новини

A female suspect allegedly paid tens of thousands of euros for the assassination of a Slovak reporter, whose death shocked the nation and led to the resignation of its prime minister, prosecutors said Monday.

The suspect, identified as Alena Zs, allegedly ordered the murder, paying €50,000 ($58,100) and forgiving a debt of €20,000. The hitman was identified as Tomas Sz, a former police officer. Two other accomplices are in custody.

Jan Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kusnirova were found dead from gunshots wounds at their home near Bratislava in February.  Kuciak, 27, had been reporting on links between Slovak politicians and the Italian mafia. Prosecutors say he was killed to prevent his story from being published. Kusnirova was apparently an unintended victim.

Kuciak’s death was the first targeted killing of a journalist in the country’s history. Public outcry against the murders and government corruption was so strong that Prime Minister Robert Fico was forced to resign in March.

Local media reported Alena Zs had been an interpreter for Slovak multimillionaire Marian Kocner, whose business activities were being scrutinized by Kuciak at the time of his death. Kocner is reportedly the godfather of the Alena Zs’ daughter. 

Kocner, 55, owns several companies. He has been in custody since June on suspicion of having forged promissory notes. He has not been charged in connection with Kuciak’s killing. 

Observers say the murders are characteristic of a European political climate that has increasingly shifted away from freedom of the press.

“Despite the fact that Slovakia is a democracy and is an EU member, there has been this somewhat negative trend in regards to media freedom for some time,” Gulnoza Said of the Committee to Protect Journalists told VOA News. “It climaxed this year when Jan Kuciak and his fiancée were found murdered.”

“That just shows that even the situation in countries that have always been, or at least for some time have been considered democracies, is changing,” she said.
…

Britain cannot be bullied, Brexit minister Dominic Raab said on Monday, sharpening the government’s criticism of the European Union for taunting Prime Minister Theresa May and souring difficult Brexit talks.

May’s ministers have come out one by one at their party’s annual conference in the city of Birmingham to warn the EU that they will embrace leaving without a deal if the bloc fails to show “respect” in the talks to end Britain’s membership.

Just six months before Britain is due to leave the EU in the country’s biggest shift in foreign and trade policy in more than 40 years, May faces growing criticism over her proposals not only in her governing party but also in Brussels.

Party unity is on British ministers’ minds, and they are encouraging the faithful to direct their anger at the EU rather than at their prime minister, who some eurosceptic Conservatives accuse of leading Britain towards a “Brexit in name only.”

But the new strident tone has annoyed many in Brussels, especially when foreign minister Jeremy Hunt compared the bloc to the Soviet Union, the master of several states in eastern Europe which saw membership of the EU as a measure of their freedom.

Other ministers, such as finance minister Philip Hammond, have taken a softer tone, pointing out that leaving without a deal could hurt Britain’s economy, the world’s fifth largest.

But Raab said he had called on the EU to match the “ambition and pragmatism” Britain had put forward with May’s Chequers proposals, named after her country residence where an agreement with her ministers was hashed out in July.

“Unfortunately, that wasn’t on display in Salzburg,” he said, describing a summit last month in the Austrian city where EU leaders rejected parts of the Chequers plan. “Our prime minister has been constructive and respectful. In return we heard jibes from senior leaders and we saw a starkly one-sided approach to negotiation.”

“What is unthinkable is that this government, or any British government, could be bullied by the threat of some kind of economic embargo, into signing a one-sided deal against our country’s interests,” Raab said, later calling again on the EU to move their position and meet Britain half way.

Instead of the much-hoped-for staging post, the Salzburg summit has become a byword for a sharp deterioration in the atmosphere of the talks, when British government officials felt May was ambushed by the other EU leaders over Brexit.

“No Cherries”

A tweet by European Council President Donald Tusk showing him offering May a selection of cakes with the comment: “A piece of cake, perhaps? Sorry, no cherries” “certainly had an impact,” one official said.

With no divorce deal and a standoff over the shape of any future relationship, the possibility of a “no deal Brexit” has increased, with some businesses preparing for what they see as a worst case scenario.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said the discussion in Britain over Brexit was still far removed from reality.

“The world is watching,” said Matthew Fell, chief U.K. policy director at the Confederation of British Industry.

“Every signal is hugely important in terms of setting the tone. So the more that people can coalesce around some areas of agreement such as an industrial strategy, innovation and skills would be hugely helpful,” he told Reuters.

But one source close to the government said there was now a sense that the EU had realized that the tone set in Salzburg was “perhaps a bit off” and, behind the scenes, conversations between the two sides were more constructive.

Raab later said the government was open to looking at regulatory checks to try to ease talks on a so-called backstop to prevent a return to a hard border between the British province of Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland – one of the outstanding issues yet to be agreed.

Hammond, for one, was keen to pursue a more positive stance.

After Brexit, Britain and the EU will still “be neighbors and we are going to have to carry on living with each other,” he told the conference, again backing May’s Chequers plan. “Mr. Tusk says it won’t work. But that’s what people said about the light bulb in 1878. Our job is to prove him wrong.”

But Hunt’s popular line at conference, that the EU was acting like the Soviet Union, did little to soothe relations, provoking those eastern members of the bloc which only regained full independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. They joined the EU more than a decade later.

Lithuania’s EU commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis told Hunt he was born in a Soviet gulag forced labour camp and was jailed by the Soviet KGB state security agency.

“Happy to brief you on the main differences between EU and Soviet Union,” he said. “Anytime. Whatever helps.”

But back in Birmingham, it was Raab, winning a standing ovation for his story about his father’s journey from then Czechoslovakia after the Nazi invasion, who summed up Britain’s new combative stance.

“The EU’s theological approach allows no room for serious compromise,” he said. “If the EU want a deal, they need to get serious.”
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Eurozone nations put Italy’s government under immediate pressure Monday over its budget proposals, which they said would pile more debt on Italians and skirt the rules of good fiscal housekeeping shared by the 19 nations using the euro currency.

Italy’s populist government announced last week it would increase spending next year, pushing the budget deficit out to 2.4 percent of GDP, past a 1.6 percent limit the government had earlier said it would observe. While still below the EU limit of 3 percent, the move breaks with Italy’s recent efforts to reduce its debts and sets up a clash with the country’s European partners.

“We are all bound by the euro and need sound policies to protect it,” eurogroup President Mario Centeno said after Italy was forced to explain itself at the monthly meeting of the group’s finance ministers.

A runaway budget deficit and massive debt load already brought eurozone member Greece to the brink of bankruptcy three years ago and threatened to break up the eurozone itself. No one wants that scenario to be repeated.

Italy has the eurozone’s highest debt load in Europe after Greece, and financial markets fell sharply last week when the Italian government unveiled its spending proposals.

“I cannot see how these figures can be compatible with our rules,” EU Financial Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici said Monday as he joined the eurozone finance ministers.

He said Italy’s spending plans for the next three years were “a very significant deviation from the commitment which had been taken.”

Dutch Finance Minister Wopke Hoekstra said “the signals we are getting so far are not very reassuring.”

Italy sought to reassure its partners, with Italian Finance Minister Giovanni Tria saying they should “remain calm” and await his explanations.

The eurozone sets overall targets of 3 percent annual deficits and commits countries to move toward 60 percent overall debt. Currently, Italy’s debt stands at about 130 percent of GDP.

“I just want to be very clear, that there are rules,” said French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire. “Rules are the same for every state, because our futures our linked. The futures of Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Luxembourg — all the members of the eurozone — are linked.”

The Italian budget will go to the European Commission for vetting this month.
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French singer Charles Aznavour has died at the age of 94, French media reported on Monday, citing his spokesman.

Aznavour, who was born Shahnour Varinag Aznavourian in Paris to Armenian parents, sold more than 100 million records in 80 countries.

He was often described as France’s Frank Sinatra.

Aznavour began his career peddling his music to French artists of the 1940s and 1950s such as Edith Piaf, Maurice Chevalier and Charles Trenet.

He discovered his talent for penning songs while performing in cabarets with partner Pierre Roche, with Roche playing the piano and Aznavour singing.

It was after World War II that Piaf took notice of the duo and took them with her on a tour of the United States and Canada, with Aznavour composing some of her most popular hits.

The young Aznavour grew up on Paris’ Left Bank. His father was a singer who also worked as a cook and restaurant manager, and his mother was an actress.

Aznavour’s first public performances were at Armenian dances where his father and older sister Aida sang, and the young Charles danced.

President Emmanuel Macron was a big fan of Aznavour and sang many of his songs during karaoke nights with friends when he was a student, according to former classmates.

 
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European Union and NATO officials are urging Macedonia to move forward with procedures to change its name, which would pave the way for the country to join both entities.

EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn said in a tweet that he expects “all political leaders to respect this decision and take it forward with utmost responsibility and unity across party lines.”

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg tweeted: “I urge all political leaders and parties to engage constructively and responsibly to seize this historic opportunity,” adding that NATO’s door is still open to Macedonia “but all national procedures have to be completed.”

The United States also supported moving forward with the process. “We urge leaders to rise above partisan politics and seize this historic opportunity to secure a brighter future for the country as a full participant in Western institutions,” the State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said.

According to the electoral commission’s official count, more than 90 percent of those casting a ballot favored the name change to North Macedonia, although only one third of the electorate voted.

Macedonia’s electoral commission had said two days ago that the referendum results would be declared invalid if less than 50 percent of the eligible voting population went to the polls.

Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, who had said he would resign if a vast majority of eligible voters did not approve the referendum, described the vote as a clear success, despite the low turnout.

Zaev said he would not resign because a “vast majority” of those who turned out Sunday approved the measure.

He urged lawmakers to ratify the necessary changes to the constitution, which would finalize the deal.

Macedonian nationalists, including President Gjorge Ivanov, had urged a boycott of the vote.

In a statement Sunday, the Greek Foreign Ministry said the “contradictory” vote — overwhelming approval, yet low turnout — would require Macedonia to move carefully to “preserve the positive potential of the deal.”

Athens has always argued that the name “Macedonia” belongs exclusively to its northern province of Macedonia and that Macedonia’s use of the name implied Skopje’s intentions to claim the Greek province.

Greece’s objections forced Macedonia to use the awkward-sounding ‘Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’ in the United Nations. Greece has consistently blocked its smaller neighbor from membership in NATO and the EU as long it retained its name.

Macedonian President Ivanov had said giving in to Athens’ demand would be a “flagrant violation of sovereignty.”

He steadfastly refused to back the deal reached between Prime Minister Zaev and his Greek counterpart, Alexis Tsipras that put the name change to a vote.
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Nobel Prizes are the most prestigious awards on the planet but the aura of this year’s announcements has been dulled by questions over why so few women have entered the pantheon, particularly in the sciences.

The march of Nobel announcements begins Monday with the physiology/medicine prize.

Since the first prizes were awarded in 1901, 892 individuals have received one, but just 48 of them have been women. Thirty of those women won either the literature or peace prize, highlighting the wide gender gap in the laureates for physics, chemistry and physiology/medicine. In addition, only one woman has won for the economics prize, which is not technically a Nobel but is associated with the prizes.

Some of the disparity likely can be attributed to underlying structural reasons, such as the low representation of women in high-level science. The American Institute of Physics, for example, says in 2014, only 10 percent of full physics professorships were held by women.

But critics suggest that gender bias pervades the process of nominations, which come largely from tenured professors.

“The problem is the whole nomination process, you have these tenured professors who feel like they are untouchable. They can get away with everything from sexual harassment to micro-aggressions like assuming the woman in the room will take the notes, or be leaving soon to have babies,” said Anne-Marie Imafidon, the head of Stemettes, a British group that encourages girls and young women to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

“It’s little wonder that these people aren’t putting women forward for nominations. We need to be better at telling the stories of the women in science who are doing good things and actually getting recognition,” she said.

Powerful men taking credit for the ideas and elbow grease of their female colleagues was turned on its head in 1903 when Pierre Curie made it clear he would not accept the physics prize unless his wife and fellow researcher Marie Curie was jointly honored. She was the first female winner of any Nobel prize, but only one other woman has won the physics prize since then.

More than 70 years later, Jocelyn Bell, a post-graduate student at Cambridge, was overlooked for the physics prize despite her crucial contribution to the discovery of pulsars. Her supervisor, Antony Hewish, took all of the Nobel credit.

Brian Keating, a physics professor at the University of California San Diego and author of the book “Losing the Nobel Prize: A Story of Cosmology, Ambition, and the Perils of Science’s Highest Honor,” says the Nobel Foundation should lift its restrictions on re-awarding for a breakthrough if an individual has been overlooked. He also says posthumous awards also should be considered and there should be no restriction on the number of individuals who can share a prize. Today the limit is three people for one prize.

“These measures would go a long way to addressing the injustice that so few of the brilliant women who have contributed so much to science through the years have been overlooked,” he said.

Keating fears that simply accepting the disparity as structural will seriously harm the prestige of all the Nobel prizes.

“I think with the Hollywood (hash)MeToo movement, it has already happened in the film prizes. It has happened with the literature prize. There is no fundamental law of nature that the Nobel science prizes will continue to be seen as the highest accolade,” he said.

This year’s absence of a Nobel Literature prize, which has been won by 14 women, puts an even sharper focus on the gender gap in science prizes.

The Swedish Academy, which awards the literature prize, said it would not pick a winner this year after sex abuse allegations and financial crimes scandals rocked the secretive panel, sharply dividing its 18 members, who are appointed for life. Seven members quit or distanced themselves from academy. Its permanent secretary, Anders Olsson, said the academy wanted “to commit time to recovering public confidence.”

The academy plans to award both the 2018 prize and the 2019 prize next year _ but even that is not guaranteed. The head of the Nobel Foundation, Lars Heikensten, was quoted Friday as warning that if the Swedish Academy does not resolve its tarnished image another group could be chosen to select the literature prize every year.

Stung by criticism about the diversity gap between former prize winners, the Nobel Foundation has asked that the science awarding panels for 2019 ask nominators to consider their own biases in the thousands of letters they send to solicit Nobel nominations.

“I am eager to see more nominations for women so they can be considered,” said Goran Hansson, secretary-general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and vice chairman of the Nobel Foundation. “We have written to nominators asking them to make sure they do not miss women or people of other ethnicities or nationalities in their nominations. We hope this will make a difference for 2019.”

It’s not the first time that Nobel officials have sought diversity. In his 1895 will, prize founder Alfred Nobel wrote: “It is my express wish that in the awarding of the prizes no consideration shall be given to national affiliations of any kind, so that the most worthy shall receive the prize, whether he be Scandinavian or not.”

Even so, the prizes remained overwhelmingly white and male for most of their existence.

For the first 70 years, the peace prize skewed heavily toward Western white men, with just two of the 59 prizes awarded to individuals or institutions based outside Europe or North America. Only three of the winners in that period were female.

The 1973 peace prize shared by North Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho and American Henry Kissinger widened the horizons _ since then more than half the Nobel Peace prizes have gone to African or Asian individuals or institutions.

Since 2000, six women have won the peace prize.

After the medicine prize on Monday, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences will announce the Nobel in physics on Tuesday and in chemistry on Wednesday, while the Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded Friday by the Norwegian Nobel Committee. On Oct. 8, Sweden’s Central Bank announces the winner of the economics prize, given in honor of Alfred Nobel.
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Macedonians voted Sunday whether to change the name of their country – a move that could pave the way for it to join NATO and the European Union.

Following a deal with neighboring Greece after decades of dispute, Macedonians voted on whether to change the country’s name to North Macedonia.

Nationalists, including Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov, urged a boycott of the vote Sunday, resulting in low voter turnout.  Macedonia’s electoral commission said two days ago the referendum results would be declared invalid if less than 50 percent of the eligible voting population went to the polls.

Even if the referendum vote passed and turnout exceeded 50 percent, Macedonia’s Parliament would have to pass the name change with a two thirds majority to amend the constitution. 

Athens has argued that the name “Macedonia”  belongs exclusively to its northern province of Macedonia and using the name implies Skopje’s intentions to claim the Greek province.

Greece has for years pressured Skopje into renouncing the country’s name, forcing it to use the more formal moniker Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia in the United Nations.   Greece has consistently blocked its smaller neighbor from gaining membership in NATO and the EU as long it retains its name.

President Ivanov said giving into Athens’ demand would be a “flagrant violation of sovereignty.”  

He steadfastly refused to back the deal reached between Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev and his Greek counterpart Alexis Tsipras that puts the name change to a vote.

“This referendum could lead us to become a subordinate state, dependent on another country,” Ivanov said.  “We will become a state in name only, not in substance.”
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Traditional two-handled ceramic jars known as amphoras were used extensively in ancient Greece to store and transport a variety of products, especially wine. These days they are more likely to be found in shipwrecks than in stores. But wine-filled amphoras are once again being found on the sea floor, not from sunken ships, but deliberately placed there by a special Eastern European winery. Faith Lapidus explains.
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Tension flared in a familiar section of the Balkans as thousands of people marched Saturday in Kosovo’s capital against a possible territory swap with former war foe Serbia, while the Serbian government put its troops on alert after special police were deployed to Kosovo’s Serb-dominated north.

Serbia reacted after Kosovo’s special police moved into an area around the Kosovo side of the strategic Gazivode Lake, said Marko Djuric, director of Serbia’s Office for Kosovo and Metohija.

Kosovar President Hashim Thaci visited the area near Serbia’s border Saturday, a move that temporarily redirected attention away from the large opposition protest in Pristina. A security unit was dispatched to the area for the president’s stop, Kosovo police said.

Serbia’s Djuric said special troops must not be deployed unannounced to northern Kosovo, where the country’s ethnic Serbian minority population is concentrated. Serbian media said Belgrade had complained to NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.

President Aleksandar Vucic, an ally of Russia in the Balkans, warned at a news conference later on Saturday that Serbia would not allow any violence against the Serb minority in Kosovo.

No ‘great global conflicts’

Asked if he would seek Russia’s help as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad did, Vucic responded he would seek advice but not military help from President Vladimir Putin during an upcoming visit to Moscow.

“I would not like to see great global conflicts take part on our territory,” said Vucic.

Serbia does not recognize Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence, but their governments have been in European Union-mediated negotiations for seven years. The two sides have been told they must normalize relations as a precondition to EU membership.

Thaci has said a “border correction” could be part of the discussions. Some Serbian officials have suggested an exchange of territories could help end the dispute.

One idea that has been floated by politicians in both countries involves exchanging predominantly ethnic Albanian Presevo Valley in southern Serbia with Kosovo’s Serb-populated north.

However, the idea has faced opposition from Germany and other EU nations, which have said they fear a Kosovo-Serbia trade could trigger demands for territory revisions in other parts of the volatile Balkans.

Thousands of supporters of Kosovo’s opposition Self-Determination Party marched peacefully through the capital, Pristina, on Saturday to protest any potential change of borders. The protesters held national Albanian flags.

‘Grandiose protest’

Opposition leader Albin Kurti said he considered Thaci a collaborator with Serbia and called for fresh elections.

“Such a grandiose protest is our response to the deals from Thaci and Vucic,” Kurti said.

Thaci has rejected both border revisions based on ethnicity and a possible land trade. But he has not clarified how Serbia could be persuaded to give away the Presevo Valley without something in exchange.

Three weeks ago, Serbian leader Vucic visited the lake in northern Kosovo that Thaci traveled to Saturday.

NATO-led peacekeepers in Kosovo, a force known as KFOR, called for calm and restraint. They said they would continue monitoring the situation along the Serbia-Kosovo border with ground patrols and helicopters.

Thaci’s office issued a statement acknowledging his visit to a border crossing and the lake.

“During the weekends the head of state usually goes to Kosovo’s beauties,” the statement said.

The governments in both Pristina and Belgrade have said they hope the EU-mediated talks will result in a legally binding agreement.

“Talks [with Serbia] that continue will be on peace and stability,” Thaci said Saturday.
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Catalan separatists clashed with police Saturday in downtown Barcelona, with two arrests being made, as tensions increased before the anniversary of the Spanish region’s illegal referendum on secession that ended in violent raids by security forces.

Separatists tossed and sprayed colored powder at the local police, filling the air in a thick rainbow cloud and covering anti-riot shields, police vans and the pavement on a downtown boulevard in a panoply of bright colors. Some protesters also threw eggs and other projectiles and engaged with the police line, which used baton strikes to keep them back.

The clashes erupted after local Catalan police intervened to form a barrier when a separatist threw purple paint on a man who was part of another march of people in support of Spanish police demanding a pay raise. Officers used batons to push back the oncoming separatists and keep apart the opposing groups.

The Catalan police told The Associated Press that both people were arrested on charges of aggressions against police officers.

There were more confrontations between separatists and local police as the separatists tried to invade Barcelona’s main city square where 3,000 people supporting Spanish police had ended their march.

Furious shouts

Separatists shouted “Get out of here, fascists!” and cried for `”Independence!” at the Spanish police supporters, who responded by shouting “We will be victorious!” and “Our cause is just!”

Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau issued a plea for peace when the first scuffles broke out.

“I make a call for calm,” Colau told Catalunya Radio. “This city has always defended that everyone can exercise their rights to free speech.”

The pro-police march had originally planned to end in another square that’s home to the regional and municipal government seats, but 6,000 separatists, according to local police, gathered in the square to force regional authorities to alter the march’s route.

The police march was organized by the police association JUSAPOL, which wants Spain’s two nationwide police forces, the national police and Civil Guard, to be paid as much as Catalonia’s regional police.

JUSAPOL holds marches in cities across Spain, but Saturday’s march in Barcelona came two days before Catalonia’s separatists plan to remember last year’s referendum on secession that the regional government held despite its prohibition by the nation’s top court.

That Oct. 1 referendum was marred when national police and Civil Guard officers clashed with voters, injuring hundreds.

JUSAPOL spokesman Antonio Vazquez told Catalan television TV3 that while the march’s goal was to demand better salaries, they also wanted to support the national police and Civil Guard officers who had been ordered to dismantle last year’s referendum.

“The national police and Civil Guard agents who acted last year were doing their duty and now they are under pressure and we have to support them,” Vazquez said.

Rallying call

Last year’s police operation that failed to stop the referendum has become a rallying call for Catalonia’s separatists, who argue that it was evidence of Spain’s mistreatment of the wealthy region that enjoys an ample degree of self-rule.

Pro-secession lawmaker Vidal Aragones of the extreme left CUP party called the police march an “insult to the Catalan people.”

“It is not acceptable,” Aragones said. “They have come here to remember the violence that they employed.”

Two weeks ago, police had to intervene to keep apart two separate rallies by Catalan separatists and Spanish unionists in Barcelona, the region’s capital.

Catalonia’s separatist-led government is asking Spain’s central authorities to authorize a binding vote on secession.

Polls and recent elections show that the region’s 7.5 million residents are roughly equally divided by the secession question.
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Journalists are being jailed in unprecedented numbers across the globe, with 262 detained for their work at the end of 2017, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

“The jailing of journalists is a brutal form of censorship that is having a profound impact on the flow of information around the world,” CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon told a press freedom event Friday at the United Nations.

At the end of 2017, the worst offenders were Turkey, with 73 journalists jailed; China with 41; and Egypt with 20.

CPJ says that slightly more than half of all imprisoned journalists were jailed for reporting on human rights violations.

WATCH: A Pakistani American Startup Fighting Media Censorship

Simon said the United Nations has not been a strong enough voice on the issue because it has a culture of rarely naming and shaming its member states.

The event, organized on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly annual meeting, highlighted the cases of five reporters CPJ says have been unjustly detained. They are nationals of Bangladesh, Kyrgyzstan, Egypt and Myanmar.

The two most high-profile cases are of Reuters reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo in Myanmar. The two men were detained in December 2017 while they were investigating the mass killing of Rohingya Muslim men and boys by Buddhist villagers in the Rakhine state village of Inn Din.

Myanmar’s military launched a crackdown on the minority Rohingya in August 2017 after Rohingya militants attacked several police checkpoints and killed a dozen Myanmar police officers. In a matter of a few months, 700,000 Rohingya fled to neighboring Bangladesh. Survivors gave accounts of horrific abuses, including widespread rapes, torture, and the looting and burning of their homes. The United Nations has deemed the atrocities a “textbook case” of ethnic cleansing. 

British barrister Amal Clooney is representing the two Reuters reporters. She says the Myanmar authorities did not want their story about the massacre at Inn Din to come out.

“So police planted government documents on the journalists while other officers lay in wait outside to arrest them,” Clooney said of how the two men were set up. “The journalists were arrested and were then prosecuted and subjected to a show trial in which their conviction was guaranteed.”

Earlier this month, the two were sentenced to seven years in prison for violating a law on state secrets. Clooney said they are seeking a presidential pardon in Myanmar for them, as it is the only avenue currently available to win their freedom.

“The attack on them is a chilling warning to other journalists worldwide,” said Reuters President Stephen Adler. “Myanmar is not the only country where attempts are made to deter investigative news gathering, scare sources and whistle-blowers, dim the spotlight of reporting, and thereby allow officials to act in darkness with impunity.”

Other arrests

Azimjon Askarov, a Kyrgyz journalist, has been serving a life sentence since July 2010. CPJ’s Simon says he was covering deadly ethnic clashes in southern Kyrgyzstan in the summer of 2010. During the trial, he and his lawyer were both assaulted.

“CPJ conducted its own investigation into the case in 2012 and found that charges against Askarov were in retaliation for his reporting on corrupt and abusive practices by regional police and prosecutors,” Simon said.

Bangladeshi photojournalist and commentator Shahidul Alam was arrested last month while covering student protests in Bangladesh. A Dhaka court ordered that he be held for seven days to determine if he violated an information law by spreading propaganda and false information.

“When Shahidul was brought into court, he screamed that had been tortured. He was unable to walk without assistance,” Simon told the panel. He remains in detention.

Since 2013, CPJ says, Egypt has been among the world’s worst jailers of journalists, often detaining reporters on politically motivated anti-state charges.

Alaa Abdelfattah, a well-known Egyptian blogger and activist who has written about politics and human rights, is one of them. He is serving a five-year sentence on charges that he organized a protest and assaulted a police officer.

“We believe the charges are trumped up and in retaliation for Alaa’s coverage of alleged human rights abuses by the police and security forces,” Simon said.

“We are witnessing a growing hatred of journalists worldwide, which unfortunately is not limited to authoritarian regimes,” said Margaux Ewen, North America director of Reporters Without Borders. “We are seeing democratically elected regimes also attack the press more and more frequently, which is why we need to continue to address wrongs as they occur.”

U.S. President Donald Trump refers to negative news coverage of him and his administration as “fake news,” and reporters at his rallies and during his campaign reported encountering hostility from his supporters.

Reporters in the United States are facing a more dangerous work environment. CPJ says at least three journalists have been arrested this year and 34 last year. In June, five people were killed in the newsroom of an Annapolis, Maryland, newspaper.

Journalists covering white nationalism and the far-right political movement have reported receiving threats, and at least 24 journalists have been assaulted, shoved or had their equipment damaged while working.

“A free press is not an adversary, but an essential component of democracy,” Ewen said.
…

Journalists are being jailed in unprecedented numbers across the globe, with 262 detained for their work at the end of 2017, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

“The jailing of journalists is a brutal form of censorship that is having a profound impact on the flow of information around the world,” CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon told a press freedom event Friday at the United Nations.

At the end of 2017, the worst offenders were Turkey, with 73 journalists jailed; China with 41; and Egypt with 20.

CPJ says that slightly more than half of all imprisoned journalists were jailed for reporting on human rights violations.

WATCH: A Pakistani American Startup Fighting Media Censorship

Simon said the United Nations has not been a strong enough voice on the issue because it has a culture of rarely naming and shaming its member states.

The event, organized on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly annual meeting, highlighted the cases of five reporters CPJ says have been unjustly detained. They are nationals of Bangladesh, Kyrgyzstan, Egypt and Myanmar.

The two most high-profile cases are of Reuters reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo in Myanmar. The two men were detained in December 2017 while they were investigating the mass killing of Rohingya Muslim men and boys by Buddhist villagers in the Rakhine state village of Inn Din.

Myanmar’s military launched a crackdown on the minority Rohingya in August 2017 after Rohingya militants attacked several police checkpoints and killed a dozen Myanmar police officers. In a matter of a few months, 700,000 Rohingya fled to neighboring Bangladesh. Survivors gave accounts of horrific abuses, including widespread rapes, torture, and the looting and burning of their homes. The United Nations has deemed the atrocities a “textbook case” of ethnic cleansing. 

British barrister Amal Clooney is representing the two Reuters reporters. She says the Myanmar authorities did not want their story about the massacre at Inn Din to come out.

“So police planted government documents on the journalists while other officers lay in wait outside to arrest them,” Clooney said of how the two men were set up. “The journalists were arrested and were then prosecuted and subjected to a show trial in which their conviction was guaranteed.”

Earlier this month, the two were sentenced to seven years in prison for violating a law on state secrets. Clooney said they are seeking a presidential pardon in Myanmar for them, as it is the only avenue currently available to win their freedom.

“The attack on them is a chilling warning to other journalists worldwide,” said Reuters President Stephen Adler. “Myanmar is not the only country where attempts are made to deter investigative news gathering, scare sources and whistle-blowers, dim the spotlight of reporting, and thereby allow officials to act in darkness with impunity.”

Other arrests

Azimjon Askarov, a Kyrgyz journalist, has been serving a life sentence since July 2010. CPJ’s Simon says he was covering deadly ethnic clashes in southern Kyrgyzstan in the summer of 2010. During the trial, he and his lawyer were both assaulted.

“CPJ conducted its own investigation into the case in 2012 and found that charges against Askarov were in retaliation for his reporting on corrupt and abusive practices by regional police and prosecutors,” Simon said.

Bangladeshi photojournalist and commentator Shahidul Alam was arrested last month while covering student protests in Bangladesh. A Dhaka court ordered that he be held for seven days to determine if he violated an information law by spreading propaganda and false information.

“When Shahidul was brought into court, he screamed that had been tortured. He was unable to walk without assistance,” Simon told the panel. He remains in detention.

Since 2013, CPJ says, Egypt has been among the world’s worst jailers of journalists, often detaining reporters on politically motivated anti-state charges.

Alaa Abdelfattah, a well-known Egyptian blogger and activist who has written about politics and human rights, is one of them. He is serving a five-year sentence on charges that he organized a protest and assaulted a police officer.

“We believe the charges are trumped up and in retaliation for Alaa’s coverage of alleged human rights abuses by the police and security forces,” Simon said.

“We are witnessing a growing hatred of journalists worldwide, which unfortunately is not limited to authoritarian regimes,” said Margaux Ewen, North America director of Reporters Without Borders. “We are seeing democratically elected regimes also attack the press more and more frequently, which is why we need to continue to address wrongs as they occur.”

U.S. President Donald Trump refers to negative news coverage of him and his administration as “fake news,” and reporters at his rallies and during his campaign reported encountering hostility from his supporters.

Reporters in the United States are facing a more dangerous work environment. CPJ says at least three journalists have been arrested this year and 34 last year. In June, five people were killed in the newsroom of an Annapolis, Maryland, newspaper.

Journalists covering white nationalism and the far-right political movement have reported receiving threats, and at least 24 journalists have been assaulted, shoved or had their equipment damaged while working.

“A free press is not an adversary, but an essential component of democracy,” Ewen said.
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Four large Finnish unions called on Friday for tens of thousands of their members to go on strike on Oct. 3 to protest against what they called attacks on workers’ rights.

The unions said the strike was over government plans to make it easier for small companies to dismiss workers.

“The obstinacy of the right-wing government … has not left us with any choice,” the Industrial Union’s chair Riku Aalto said in a statement.

Service sector union PAM, professionals’ union Pro and the Finnish Electrical Workers’ Union also called the 24-hour strike.

Finnish food industry workers had already announced plans to strike on Oct 3. against the government plans.

The government led by the Center Party has said the changes will end up creating more jobs as they will make small companies more willing to hire.
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France’s leaders are proposing a new international coalition to revive global cooperation that they say is being threatened by countries like the United States and Russia.

Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian announced the plan Friday while speaking at Harvard University, calling for an alliance of “goodwill powers” that believe in cooperation and share democratic values.

Any nation could join, but the minister says he hopes it would include countries like India, Australia and Japan, along with others in Europe. He says it would go on with or without the U.S.

His speech came days after U.S. President Donald Trump told the United Nations General Assembly that he rejects “the ideology of globalism.”

French President Emmanuel Macron countered with calls for greater cooperation and said “nationalism always leads to defeat.”
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