Three worshippers have been abducted by gang members in Port-au-Prince, the country’s capital, as they were leaving a church after attending Sunday Mass.
According to local media, the kidnappers are demanding a hefty ransom.
In Haiti, kidnappings for ransom have increased dramatically in recent years, and places of worship and the clergy are increasingly being targeted.
The situation has been called “a living nightmare” by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Witnesses reported that on Sunday morning local time, gang members kidnapped a couple and another person who regularly attend services at the First Baptist Church in the city’s centre.
Their kidnapping came just five days after a priest was seized on his way to his missionary community, located 27 kilometres (17 miles) north of the capital.
Father Antoine Macaire Christian Noah, who is from Cameroon, had been working as a parish priest in the mountainous village of Casale, north of the capital, for a year before he was snatched.
The Claretian Missionaries, the religious congregation he belongs to, said it had been contacted by the gang with a ransom demand.
In 2022, there were more than 1,200 reported kidnappings in Haiti, double that of the previous year.
But kidnapping is not the only crime that has been on the rise in Haiti.
A new UN report released last week highlights how gang violence has sharply increased in Brooklyn, a neighbourhood on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince.
UN High Commissioners for Human Rights Volker Türk described the findings as “horrifying”.
“It paints a picture of how people are being harassed and terrorised by criminal gangs for months without the state being able to stop it,” Mr Türk said.
Haiti was plunged into lawlessness following the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021.
The country has been led by Prime Minister Ariel Henry since then, but he has failed to rein in the gangs which now control an estimated 60% of the capital.
Mr Henry has repeatedly called for the deployment of an international force to help police in their fight against the criminal gangs.
So far, no country has offered to lead such a force, but Mr Henry says it is key to providing security so that long-postponed elections can be held.
The rapid response from Washington to Beijing’s accusation widens the dispute that started last week after the US military allegedly shot down what it believes to be aChinese spy balloon.
More than ten times in the previous year, China has accused the US of illegally using high-altitude balloons to fly over its territory. Each time, the US government has responded with a denial.
Days prior to the allegation on Monday, the US shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon that had travelled from Alaska to South Carolina, igniting a fresh crisis in relations between the two largest economies in the world. Beijing has maintained that the object was a weather craft that had veered off course.
“It is also common for US balloons to illegally enter the airspace of other countries,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at a news briefing.
“Since last year, US high-altitude balloons have illegally flown over China’s airspace more than 10 times without the approval of Chinese authorities,” Wang said without giving details about how they had been dealt with or whether they had government or military links.
The US should “first reflect on itself and change course, rather than smear and instigate a confrontation”, Wang said.
The White House swiftly denied China’s assertions.
“Not true. Not doing it. Just absolutely not true,” national security spokesman John Kirby said in an interview with MSNBC. “We are not flying balloons over China.”
After the downing of the alleged Chinese airship last week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken cancelled a visit to Beijing that many had hoped would put the brakes on the sharp decline in relations over Taiwan, trade, human rights and Chinese claims in the disputed South China Sea.
The US has since placed economic restrictions on six Chinese entities it said are linked to China’s aerospace programmes.
US Deputy Secretary of Commerce Don Graves has said his department “will not hesitate to continue to use” such restrictions and other regulatory and enforcement tools “to protect US national security and sovereignty”.
The US House of Representatives also voted unanimously to condemn China for a “brazen violation” ofUS sovereignty and efforts to “deceive the international community through false claims about its intelligence collection campaigns”.
Separately on Monday, the Philippines accused a Chinese coastguard ship of targeting a Philippine coastguard vessel with a military-grade laser and temporarily blinding some of its crew in the South China Sea. Manila called the incident a “blatant” violation of the Philippines’ sovereign rights.
Wang said a Philippine coastguard vessel had trespassed into Chinese waters without permission on February 6 and that Chinese coastguard vessels responded “professionally and with restraint”. China claims virtually all of the South China Sea and has been steadily building up its maritime forces and island outposts in the strategic waterway.
“China and the Philippines are maintaining communication through diplomatic channels in this regard,” Wang said.
Since taking office in 1982, President Biya has served Cameroon for seven terms. According to many, a change is necessary.
When Paul Biya, the newly elected president of Cameroon, visited the United States in 1984, Edith Kah Walla was at the forefront of a group of students eagerly anticipating the stability, democracy, and end to corruption the young leader would bring.
Biya turns 90 on Monday and is now the oldest leader in the world. Kah Walla, one of Biya’s opponents in the 2011 presidential election, will not be present when he cuts a large cake as he usually does on his birthday.
Her support for Biya evaporated over the years as economic progress stalled, dissenting voices were silenced, and the oil-producing country of 27 million people became split by a separatist uprising that has killed thousands, amid growing Boko Haram attacks in the north.
At 90, Biya should spend his days playing with his grandchildren, she said.
“We live in a violent, brutal dictatorship. Over the past 40 years it has gotten more and more violent and brutal,” said Kah Walla, now a civil society activist. “These 40 years are a huge setback for Cameroon.”
A government spokesperson did not respond to calls requesting comment.
Four decades of Biya
Biya has repeatedly defended his record in the past and says the government has made strides to return peace to the minority English-speaking regions where separatists are trying to form their own state.
He touts his Vision 2035 plan as a blueprint to boost development over the next 12 years.
After studying in Paris, he returned to Cameroon in 1962 as a top civil servant and quickly rose to become the prime minister in 1975. He was hand-picked as successor after the country’s first post-independence President Ahmadou Ahidjdo decided to resign suddenly in November 1982.
In Africa, only President Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guinea has ruled longer.
Millions still support Biya, although international observers have raised doubts about the fairness of elections that he routinely wins with ease. He spends long stretches in comfortable European hotels with his wife Chantal, frustrating many at home who believe the country’s crises require closer attention.
In 2020, he was not seen in public for weeks, prompting speculation that he had died of COVID-19.
Biya has ruled with openness and tolerance, said former minister Elvis Ngolle Ngolle. Old age, he said, has its advantages.
“The more you add up the age, the wiser you become – the more experienced, tolerant, logical you become,” Ngolle said.
‘I can’t celebrate’
Popular journalist and whistleblower Paul Chouta disagrees. Chouta, an outspoken critic of Biya, has been repeatedly beaten and tortured in recent years. He lives in fear: just the sound of his floorboards creaking sends him into a panic.
On March 9 last year, unknown assailants bundled him into the back of a car and drove him to an isolated spot near Yaounde airport. They beat him with stones and batons and left him for dead, he said.
Chouta is one of several reporters who have been beaten or killed. Two journalists were killed in the last month, prompting condemnation from the United Nations.
“If he [Biya] loves Cameroonians, let him fix things and go. The woes are deep,” Chouta told Reuters news agency.
It is not only well-known reporters who are wary.
Kouam Yves, a motorcycle taxi driver, last week stood at a newspaper stand discussing the news headlines with colleagues. He struggles to make a living and is critical of Biya and what he describes as rampant corruption. But he paused as he spoke, worried about who might be listening.
The alleged instigator of a violent election denial movement, the ex-president of Brazil, tells a Florida audience that he plans to soon return home.
Jair Bolsonaro, a former president of Brazil, announced on Saturday that he would be going back to his country “in the coming weeks” after spending more than a month there.
Before the current president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, took office on January 1, Bolsonaro took a flight to Florida. He then applied for a six-month tourist visa to extend his stay in the US.
“There is no place like home… We know Brazil is a fantastic country,” Bolsonaro told a gathering of Brazilians in Boca Raton, a video posted online by broadcaster CNN showed.
“I also want to return to Brazil. I intend to return to Brazil in the coming weeks.”
A swift return to Brazil could pose risks for Bolsonaro, who is accused of instigating a violent election denial movement in his home country.
Brazil’s Supreme Court has agreed to open an investigation into Bolsonaro for allegedly encouraging anti-democratic protests that ended in the storming of government buildings by his supporters in Brasilia.
His plans to return were put into question after his lawyer told the Reuters news agency last month the former president would like to “enjoy being a tourist in the United States for a few months before deciding what his next step will be”.
Still, a US official with knowledge of the situation toldReuters this week officials believe Bolsonaro will return to Brazil after the carnival festival, which ends on February 22.
In nine days, US fighter jets have shot down four flying objects. Here is what we currently know.
Concerns about North American security and strained relations with China have increased as a result of the shooting down of a large Chinese balloon off the US coast and the subsequent shooting down of three smaller objects over Canada, Alaska, and Lake Huron on the US-Canada border.
Here is what we know so far:
What were the four objects?
Late last month, a giant Chinese balloon – termed a “spycraft” by US officials – drifted for days through US skies before being shot down on February 4 by an F-22 jet off the South Carolina coast.
China insisted the balloon was conducting weather research and had gone astray.
The Pentagon said it had a gondola the size of three buses and was equipped with multiple antennas, and had solar panels large enough to power several intelligence-gathering sensors.
It also appeared to be able to steer itself, using winds and possibly a propulsion mechanism, officials said.
On February 10, US fighter jets downed another object off northern Alaska. It was much smaller than the previously shot-down balloon and lacked any system of propulsion or control, officials said.
On February 11, a US F-22 jet shot down a “high-altitude airborne object” over Canada’s far northwest Yukon territory, saying it posed a threat to the civilian flight. Canada described it as cylindrical and about the size of a Volkswagen Beetle car.
On February 12, President Joe Biden ordered US warplanes to down yet another unidentified object over Lake Huron. The object was described as an octagonal structure with strings hanging off it. It posed a hazard to civil aviation as it flew at about 20,000 feet (6,000 metres), officials said.
The Pentagon said none of the four objects appeared armed or posed any threat of attack.
Officials would not comment on the origin or function of the three objects that came after the Chinese balloon.
What has been recovered?
Military teams working from planes, boats and minisubs are scouring the shallow waters off South Carolina for debris from the balloon, with military images showing the recovery of a large piece.
Operations to recover the second object continue on sea ice near Deadhorse, Alaska. Recovery teams are searching for debris from the third object in the Yukon, while US and Canadian teams were preparing an operation to recover the fourth object’s debris.
Heino Klinck, former US deputy assistant secretary of defence for East Asia from 2019 to 2021, said there is concern about the lack of information about the flying objects over North America.
“It’s rather odd, frankly, that in a span of three days that the US air force shot down three objects in the air, and our government has yet to tell us anything about if there is a continuous threat or the origins of the aircraft,” Klinck told Al Jazeera.
What was the objects’ purpose?
US officials say the Chinese balloon, which flew over sensitive US nuclear missile sites, had surveillance equipment that could intercept telecommunications.
They said such balloons skirted US territory at least four times in the past six years, but none had flown deep into US territory.
The balloons were part of a “fleet” operated by China that has conducted surveillance on some 40 countries over five continents, US officials said.
Why so many objects now?
On Sunday, Melissa Dalton, assistant defence secretary for homeland defence, said after the Chinese balloon was detected, US air defence made adjustments to radar systems to be able to detect smaller and slower-moving objects in the atmosphere.
Analysts said normally, US and Canadian intelligence constantly receive huge amounts of raw data and generally screened some out to focus on the threat of incoming missiles, not slow-moving objects like balloons.
Beijing denounced the first balloon’s downing, saying it “seriously violated international practice”. It reserved the right “to use necessary means to deal with similar situations”.
Dalton said on Sunday that after Beijing rejected US overtures for several days, US officials have had “contacts” with China over the balloon.
The celebrated performer died in a hospital in Karachi, where he was on life support.
Zia Mohyeddin, one of Pakistan’s greatest figures in arts and culture, has passed away. He was 91.
The legendary actor, orator, author and broadcaster died on Monday morning in a hospital in Karachi where he was on life support.
In a career spanning more than six decades in various disciplines, theatre remained Mohyeddin’s lifetime passion. As the founding chair and later president emeritus of Pakistan’s premier National Academy of Performing Arts (NAPA), he mentored some of the country’s biggest acting talents.
Distinguished Zia Mohyeddin-Pakistan’s iconic talent, Intl star is no more with us. Had the privilege of working with him.Truly an inspiration in hosting. He was a great host,actor, director, producer & voice over artist. May ALLAH bless his soul & give sabr to Azra Bhabi. Ameen pic.twitter.com/cxe7ZHvb4o
Born in 1931 in Faisalabad city in Pakistan’s eastern province of Punjab, Mohyeddin studied theatre at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA), one of the world’s foremost acting schools.
Among a few Pakistanis to have performed in theatre and films outside the country, Mohyeddin delivered some of his most memorable performances in the Hollywood epic Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Behold the Pale Horse (1964) and Bombay Talkie (1970).
He also starred in British director Jamil Dehlavi’s Immaculate Conception (1994) and the critically acclaimed mini-series, The Jewel in the Crown (1984).
Mohyeddin, centre, with actors Virginia McKenna, left and Dame Sybil Thorndike during the filming of BBC TV drama, A Passage to India, in Tunbridge Wells, England [File: Reg Speller/Fox Photos/Getty Images]
He authored two books: memoir A Carrot is a Carrot (2008), and The God of My Idolatry, a collection of essays published in 2016.
Mohyeddin was a recipient of two of Pakistan’s top civilian awards: the Sitara-i-Imtiaz in 2003 and the Hilal-i-Imtiaz in 2012.
In a condolence message, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said: “Zia Mohyeddin introduced a new style of hosting in Pakistan and his acting internationally brought laurels to the country. As president of the NAPA, he performed a great role in training the next generations of actors.
“It is sad that a man with such beautiful qualities has left us.”
Popular Pakistani actor Fawad Khan, a NAPA graduate who was associated with Mohyeddin for more than a decade, told Al Jazeera the thespian’s death felt like he has lost his own father.
“I don’t have enough words to express my word and sorrow at his passing. He helped me at every stage. His life was all about theatre, the all-encompassing passion he had for it. It kept him alive,” Khan said.
The actor said Mohyeddin was famous for his wit and one-liners, yet the seriousness he brought while working at NAPA will be his lasting legacy.
“Some years ago, he was rehearing with us on stage when he suddenly fainted during a recitation. We all got worried but thankfully, he recovered soon. The incident never appeared to have scared him,” he said.
“He may not have known you and you might have never spoken to him, but he had a shared love for theatre, and knew, within the NAPA grounds, that the art was being passed on and hence preserved. He of course lives on through his work, his students, and successors, and hopefully, a continuously thriving theatre industry in Pakistan,” the Karachi-based critic told Al Jazeera.
As New Zealand’s largest city prepare for its second major storm in as many weeks, flights have been cancelled and schools closed.
Auckland residents are hunkering down at home as they prepare for Cyclone Gabrielle’s expected heavy rain, flooding, and gale-force winds.
Due to the suspension of flights, cancellation of train service, and closure of most libraries and schools, residents of the city and its environs were advised to stay at home except for absolutely necessary trips.
Approximately 250 kilometres (155 miles) northwest of New Zealand, Gabrielle is expected to approach the east coast within the next 24 hours.
“We expect the impacts of Cyclone Gabrielle to get, unfortunately, worse before they get better,” said Rachel Kelleher, deputy controller of Auckland Emergency Management, on Monday.
“It’s not the time to be complacent,” she added.
New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins on Monday announced a NZ$11.5 million ($7.25 million) package to support community groups such as food banks and to groups impacted by the floods.
The cyclone comes two weeks after a record-breaking storm swamped Auckland and killed four people.
States of emergency were in place in Auckland and at least five other regions.
The approaching storm has already brought down trees and damaged roofs, with power cut to 46,000 homes. Mobile phone services were also reported to be patchy in some areas.
Air New Zealand has cancelled 509 flights and said flights will resume on Tuesday when the weather is expected to improve.
Meteorologist Georgina Griffiths said overnight that Auckland and Great Barrier Island could see heavy rain and winds.
“I think parts of Auckland that have not yet seen challenging wind conditions are expected to see gales overnight,” she said.
“Storm surge is still coming and might peak with the high tide at 2am for eastern parts of Auckland.”
It’s the most ideal way to exact revenge on your crappy ex.
This Valentine’s Day, an Ohio animal shelter is offering to write your ex’s name in a litterbox – and let its adoptable cats go to town.
The Animal Friends Humane Society in Hamilton, Ohio, is offering the unique tribute for just $5. It has already received 480 donations, according to an email sent to CNN.
“Don’t spend thisValentine’s Day down in the dumps!” the shelter wrote on Facebook on Tuesday. “Instead cheer yourself up while making a difference for animals in need!”
On its website, the shelter said that it would accept donations for the fundraiser until Feb. 12th. It’s accepting donations over Venmo and in person.
And on Valentine’s Day, the shelter will post a video showing the litterbox in all its glory, according to its Facebook post.
The shelter currently has around 22 cats available for adoption, according to its website.
The promotion is one of a variety of anti-Valentine’s Day campaigns launched in advance of the romantic holiday. If a litterbox isn’t your style, you can also name a cockroach after your ex at the San Antonio Zoo – and watch it be fed it to an animal.
US Senator Chuck Schumer stated that a proposal to outlaw TikTok in the US “should be looked at.”
“We do know there’s Chinese ownership of the company that owns TikTok. And there are some people in the Commerce Committee that are looking into that right now,” Schumer, the Senate majority leader, told George Stephanopoulos of ABC News in a Sunday interview. “We’ll see where they come out.”
US lawmakers Marco Rubio, a Republican senator from Florida, and Angus King, an independent from Maine, said Friday they had reintroduced new legislation that aims to ban TikTok from operating in the United States unless it cuts ties with its current owner.
TikTok is owned by ByteDance, one of the most valuable private companies in China.
US officials have raised concerns that China could use its laws to pressure TikTok or ByteDance to hand over US user data that could be used for intelligence or disinformation purposes.
Those worries have prompted the US government to ban TikTok from official devices, and more than half of US states have taken similar measures, according to a CNN analysis.
TikTok has previously pushed back on the claims, saying it doesn’t share information with the Chinese government, and that a US-based security team decides who can access US user data from China.
The company did not immediately respond to a new request for comment on Monday morning Asia time.
TikTok’s Singaporean CEO, Shou Zi Chew, is slated to testify before Congress in March, on topics including TikTok’s privacy and data security practices, its impact on young users and its “relationship to the Chinese Communist Party,” according to a House committee statement.
“We hope that by sharing details of our comprehensive plans with the full Committee, Congress can take a more deliberative approach to the issues at hand,” the TikTok spokesperson.
A day after 222 prisoners were released, Blinken calls for dialogue during the infrequent high-level encounter between the two nations.
In a rare high-level conversation between the two nations,US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with his Nicaraguan counterpart, Foreign Minister Denis Moncada.
The call was made on Friday, one day after Managua freed 222 political prisoners who had been detained during crackdowns following the country’s 2018-starting anti-government protests. Most of those detainees were given permission to visit America.
The move has been seen as an attempt by President Daniel Ortega to begin to repair ties with the US. Relations have severely deteriorated in recent years as regional and Western powers have increasingly decried Ortega’s action and Washington has imposed a slew of sanctions.
In a brief statement released after Friday’s call, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Blinken and Moncada discussed the prisoners as well as “the importance of constructive dialogue”.
Price had previously said that weeks of negotiations had preceded the prisoners’ release, although Ortega has denied extensive talks preceded the release.
Washington has said nothing was promised to Ortega in return for releasing the prisoners.
US officials have said all of those released travelled to the US except for two of the prisoners who chose to stay in Nicaragua.
One of those prisoners who chose to stay, Catholic bishop Rolando Alvarez, was sentenced to 26 years in prison on Friday, stripped of his citizenship and fined.
US officials said they would allow the former prisoners to stay in the country for at least two years and would provide medical and legal support. Spain later said it would offer citizenship to the released.
A court official in Nicaragua’s capital Managua, meanwhile, had said the prisoners were “deported” and called them “traitors to the homeland”.
Speaking during a news conference on Friday, opposition leader Juan Sebastian Chamorro, who was among those released, said Ortega had freed the prisoners after “political pressure” had grown.
“I think (Ortega) wanted to basically send the opposition outside of the country into exile,” he said.
A former revolutionary, Ortega served as president of Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990.
He returned to the presidency in 2007, and has been increasingly accused of rights abuses and seeking to consolidate power, including quashing presidential term limits and seizing control of all branches of the government.
Following the mass arrest of opposition figures, Ortega easily won a fourth term in November 2021.
Turnout for the runoff stood at 72.2 percent, marginally higher than in the first round of voting.
Cyprus voters have elected the former Foreign Minister Nikos Christodoulides as the next president of the small European Union member state, with his rival conceding defeat and congratulating him.
Christodoulides, 49, defeated fellow diplomat Andreas Mavroyiannis with 51.9 percent of the vote compared to 48.1 percent on the divided Mediterranean island on Sunday.
Mavroyiannis, 66, told reporters: “Tonight a journey has ended, a great journey that I shared with thousands of people. I regret that we couldn’t achieve the change that Cyprus needed.”
Christodoulides, who defected from the conservative ruling DISY party to run as an independent, scored 32 percent a week ago against 29.6 percent for Mavroyiannis, who also ran as an independent backed by the communist AKEL party.
Widely tapped as the election favourite during the campaign, Christodoulides is seen as likely to take a hard line on moribund United Nations-backed talks on ending the island’s decades-old division.
Former top diplomat Christodoulides earlier voiced confidence about a win when he told reporters: “The Cypriot people know and understand what is at stake … I have complete confidence in their judgement.”
Supporters greet presidential candidate Andreas Mavroyiannis after he cast his vote during runoff elections outside a polling station in Nicosia, Cyprus [Christina Assi/AFP]
Rising prices
Voter turnout was 72.4 percent with more than 405,000 citizens casting a ballot, a fraction higher than in the first round.
Top concerns for many voters are the cost of living crisis, irregular immigration, and the island’s almost half-century of division between the Greek-speaking south and a Turkish-occupied breakaway statelet in the north that is recognised only by Ankara.
But many disaffected voters simply looked for “the least worse candidate – a characteristic in most elections, but more so in this one”, said Andreas Theophanous of the Cyprus Center for European and International Affairs.
Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkish forces occupied its northern third in response to a Greek-sponsored coup, but voters appeared split over whether the division was a priority in the election.
Retiree Dora Petsa, 75, said she expects the new president “to settle the Cypriot question”.
But Louis Loizides, 51, said the country has “too many internal problems” from the economy to immigration, having taken in large numbers of asylum seekers, including many who cross the UN-patrolled Green Line.
‘Rich even richer’
The ruling DISY had been knocked out of the presidential race for the first time in its history, and the conservative party’s decision to back neither candidate threw the runoff wide open.
Pre-poll favourite Christodoulides last week squeezed out DISY leader Averof Neofytou, 61, who came third with 26.11 percent in the first round, despite the incumbent’s endorsement.
Mavroyiannis surprised observers by beating Neofytou and closing the gap with Christodoulides last week.
The new government will be under pressure to root out corruption and address higher energy bills, labour disputes and the struggling economy.
Vasso Pelekanou, a 47-year-old woman, said the new president should help the middle class, which she believes was abandoned by the last government.
Numerous thousands of people thronged Madrid’s streets to express their opposition to what they perceive as a conservative regional government effort to dismantle public healthcare.
The right-wing regional government is allegedly attempting to destroy the public health system in the Spanish capital, according to health workers and their supporters who gathered in central Madrid on Sunday.
The government reported that more than 250,000 people participated in the demonstration, but organisers estimated a turnout of close to a million.
Demonstrators crowded the Plaza Cibeles area of the city centre while yelling and waving flags. Many of them carried homemade signs that read things like “A human right is the right to good health. Protect the medical system.”
One demonstrator sported a huge model of Isabel Diaz Ayuso, the right-wing leader of the Madrid regional government, witha Pinocchio-like nose attached.
One protester held up a giant caricature of Madrid regional head Isabel Diaz AyusoImage: Alejandro Martínez Vélez/EUROPA PRESS/dpa/picture alliance
“In Spain, the public health system used to be very good,” Madrid resident Ana Santamaria told the AFP news agency. “But in recent years, it has really deteriorated, particularly since the pandemic.”
Waiting lists, overworked doctors
Unions and left-wing parties complain about long patient waiting lists and a shortage of staff in health centers, forcing patients to overwhelm hospital emergency departments. Many government critics believe the conservatives are dismantling the system.
“The situation is dramatic… We can’t take proper care of the patients,” nurse Maite Lopez told AFP.
Diaz Ayuso’s opponents say her administration spends the least amount per capita on primary health care of any Spanish region even though it has the highest per capita income.
For every €2 spent on health care in Madrid, one ends up in the private sector, according to protest organisers.
Madrid leader blames upcoming election for protests
Ayuso denies the accusation and wrote on Twitter on Sunday: “We all believe in public health.”
She alleges the protests are motivated by the political interests of left-wing rivals ahead of May regional elections across most of Spain.
Spain has a hybrid healthcare system but the public sector is larger than the private one and is considered a basic pillar of the state.
The governments of the regional autonomous communities are responsible for a large part of the health budget as part of the country’s devolved political system.
The protest movement against health-care cuts has gathered strength through regular protests in recent months.
Some doctors and pediatricians have been striking on and off since November, with the Amyts doctors’ union in Madrid seeking better working conditions and pay.
After learning that Richard Sharp had made “significant errors of judgement” in assisting former primeminister Boris Johnson in obtaining a loan for almost $1 million, the opposition Labour Party demanded his resignation.
After it was determined that he had violated ethical standards regarding the Boris Johnson loan scandal, the chairman of the BBC, the country’s major public broadcaster, came under pressure to resign on Sunday.
The failure of Richard Sharp to disclose that he had acted as a go-between to help the former UK prime minister obtain an 800,000 pound loan resulted in “significant errors of judgement,” according to a committee of UK lawmakers.
Sharp was appointed to lead the BBC shortly after the loan was arranged.
The cross-party Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport Committee said Sharp’s actions “constitute a breach of the standards expected of individuals” applying for prominent public appointments.
“The public appointment process can only work effectively if everyone is open and transparent, yet Richard Sharp chose not to tell either the appointment panel or our committee about his involvement in the facilitation of a loan to Boris Johnson,” said the committee’s acting chair, Damian Green.
The chair of the BBC is appointed based on the recommendation of the government of the day.
Parliamentary committee kept in the dark
Green added that the lack of transparency meant “we were not in the full possession of the facts when we were required to rule on his suitability for the role of BBC chair.”
Without formally calling for his resignation, the committee said Sharp should “consider the impact his omissions will have”on trust in the public broadcaster.
Sharp, a former Goldman Sachs banker, has admitted that he introduced Sam Blyth, an old friend who wanted to help Johnson, to a government official in late 2020. He said his involvement went no further.
Blyth, who is a distant cousin of Johnson, went on to make the loan to the former prime minister, UK media reported.
Sharp appeared before the committee on Tuesday and reiterated that he was not involved in making a loan or in arranging a guarantee or any financing.
He said after seeking an introduction for Blyth, he had agreed with a senior government official to have nothing more to do with the matter to avoid any conflict of interest.
“Mr. Sharp appreciates that there was information that the committee felt that it should have been made aware of in his pre-appointment hearing,” a spokesperson for Sharp said. “He regrets this and apologizes.”
Sharp also apologized again to the broadcaster’s staff for the distraction caused to the BBC.
Opposition says Sharp’s position ‘untenable’
Lisa Nandy, a shadow minister from the opposition Labour Party said Sharp’s position was “increasingly untenable.”
“I think it’s difficult to see how Richard Sharp could possibly stay in the position that he’s in, given the far-reaching implications for the reputation of the BBC and the implications for trust in journalism,” she told Sky News.
Andrew Mitchell, a minister from the ruling Conservative government said it was up to the broadcaster to decide Sharp’s future.
“I think Damian Green is a very senior member of the House of Commons and what he and his committee says matters,” Mitchell told the BBC.
“But I think, as I say, this is really something which the public appointments commissioner must look at and we must wait for his judgment. And above all, of course, it’s a matter for the judgment of the BBC.”
Britain’s public appointments watchdog is also reviewing Sharp’s appointment.
The chair is responsible for maintaining the independence of the BBC. He also appoints the director general and acts as the corporation’s most senior representative to parliament and the government.
Sharp was named as the preferred candidate for the job in January 2021.
Last week, the incident took place close to the Spratly Islands. It is the most recent escalation in the conflict in the South China Sea betweenChina and the Philippines.
In the disputed South China Sea, the Philippine Coast Guard claimed on Monday that the Chinese coast guard had fired a “military-grade laser light” at one of its ships.
The incident, according to Manila, temporarily rendered some of the ship’s crew members blind.
Officials reported that the incident happened on February 6 in the Spratly Islands, about 12 miles (20 kilometres) from Second Thomas Shoal.
Philippine troops are stationed on Second Thomas Shoal inside the BRP Sierra Madre, a derelict navy ship that has been grounded into the reef to assert Manila’s territorial claims.
“The deliberate blocking of Philippine government ships to deliver food and supplies to our military personnel on board the BRP Sierra Madre is a blatant disregard for, and a clear violation of, Philippine sovereign rights in this part of the West Philippine Sea,” said the Philippine Coast Guard, using the country’s official terminology for the stretch of waters close to its western coast.
What happened?
The Philippine Coast Guard said its patrol boat was supporting a “rotation and resupply mission” when a Chinese coast guard vessel shone a green laser at the bridge of the Philippine ship.
“The Philippine coast guard will continue to exercise due diligence in protecting the country’s territorial integrity against foreign aggression,” Philippines Admiral Artemio Abu said.
China has not yet commented on the claims.
It is not clear if the resupply mission was completed.
The graduation square has a camera ban in place, but no explanation has been given for it. Alcohol, cigarettes, canned food, and bottled beverages are also not allowed at the ceremony.
“A detailed list of prohibited items has been inserted in the graduation invitation package that is presented to the graduands and invited guests,” the head of ceremonies committee, Prof Patrick Mangeni, said.
A total of 13,221 students are scheduled to graduate, with each allowed to invite only two guests.
First Lady Janet Museveni, who is also the minister of basic education, is expected to attend theceremony on Monday.
A news source, VOD, according to Prime Minister Hun Sen, defamed him and his son. He has been in power for one of the longest periods in history.
One of the last few local independent news sources was shut down on Sunday by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen.
He alleged that The Voice of Democracy (VOD)had slandered him and his son on purpose in a piece about the nation’s relief efforts for Turkey’s earthquake victims.
Beginning at 10 a.m. local time (0300 UTC) on Monday, VOD will no longer be granted a licence to publish or broadcast, the prime minister announced on Facebook.
Hun Sen offended by VOD
In an article published Wednesday, VOD quoted government spokesperson Phay Siphan as saying that Hun Sen’s son — Hun Manet — had signed the $100,000 (€ 93,750) aid agreement on behalf of the prime minister.
Hun Manet is the joint chief of staff and deputy commander for the country’s armed forces. He has been nominated by the ruling party to succeed his father in future elections.
By signing such an agreement, Hun Manet appeared to have overstepped the bounds of his position.
The prime minister initially gave VOD 72 hours to verify the facts with the Ministry of Information and demanded a public apology.
VOD sent a letter to Hun Sen’s Cabinet saying it was sorry for any confusion it may have caused and explained that the organization had only quoted a government spokesperson.
Hun Sen said the response was unacceptable and, on Sunday, ordered the ministry to revoke VOD’s license.
“Commentators tried to attack me and my son Hun Manet,” Hun Sen said, adding that the VOD story hurt the “dignity and reputation” of the Cambodian government.
He ordered the police to “keep order” but not seize property, and asked the staff of VOD to “find new jobs at other places.”
There was no immediate comment from Phay Siphan on the incident.
A longstanding crackdown on media and dissent
Hun Sen is one of the world’s longest-serving dictators. Many of his political rivals have been jailed and exiled, and multiple critical media outlets have been shut.
In 2017, The Cambodia Daily — which had a reputation for breaking news on tough issues — was shut down just months ahead of the last general election in 2018.
The tents are so close to the border wall between Syria and Turkey, they are almost touching it.
Those living here on the Syrian side may have been displaced by the country’s more than decade-old civil war. But they could also be survivors of the earthquake. Catastrophes overlap in Syria.
The earthquake, untroubled by international borders, has brought havoc to both countries. But the international relief effort has been thwarted by checkpoints. In southern Turkey, thousands of rescue workers with heavy lifting gear, paramedics and sniffer dogs have jammed the streets, and are still working to find survivors. In this part of opposition-held north-west Syria, none of this is going on.
I had just crossed the border from four days in the city of Antakya, Turkey, where the aid response is a cacophony – ambulance sirens blare all night long, dozens of earth movers roar and rip apart concrete 24 hours a day. Among the olive groves in the village of Bsania, in Syria’s Idlib province, there’s mostly silence.
The homes in this border area were newly built. Now more than 100 have gone, turned to aggregate and a ghostly white dust which gusts across the farmland. As I climb over the chalky remains of the village, I spot a gap in the ruin. Inside, a pink-tiled bathroom sits perfectly preserved.
The earthquake swallowed Abu Ala’s home, and claimed the lives of two of his children.
Image caption,The town of Bsania was a small but thriving community
“The bedroom is there, that’s my house,” he says, pointing to pile of rubble. “My wife, daughter and I were sleeping here – Wala’, the 15-year-old girl, was at the edge of the room towards the balcony. A bulldozer was able to find her, [so] I took her and buried her.”
In the dark, he and his wife clung to olive trees as aftershocks rocked the hillside.
The Syrian Civil Defence Force – also known as the White Helmets – which operates in opposition-held areas, did what they could with pickaxes and crowbars. The rescuers, who receive funding from the British government, lack modern rescue equipment.
Abu Ala’ breaks down when he describes the search for his missing 13-year-old son, Ala’. “We kept digging until evening the next day. May God give strength to those men. They went through hell to dig my boy up.”
A deeply religious man, he is now bereft. “What am I going to do?” he asks. “There are no tents, no aid, nothing. We’ve received nothing but God’s mercy until now. And I’m here left to roam the streets.”
As we leave, he asks me if I have a tent. But we have nothing to give him.
I meet up with the White Helmets, expecting to find them looking for survivors. But it is too late. Ismail al Abdullah, is weary from effort, and what he describes as the world’s disregard for the Syrian people. He says the international community has blood on its hands.
“We stopped looking for survivors after more than 120 hours passed,” he says. “We tried our best to save our people, but we couldn’t. No-one listened to us.
“From the first hour we called for urgent action, for urgent help. No-one responded. They were just saying, ‘We are with you’, nothing else. We said, we need equipment. No-one responded.”
Image caption,In the town of Harem, children have been removing rubble
Apart from a few Spanish doctors, no international aid teams have reached this part of Syria. It is an enclave of resistance from Bashar al-Assad’s rule. Under Turkish protection, it is controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an Islamist group that was once affiliated to al-Qaeda. The group has cut those links, but almost all governments have no relations with them. For our entire time in Syria, armed men, who didn’t want to be filmed, accompanied us and stood at a distance.
More than a decade into Syria’s stalled civil war, the 1.7m people who live in this area continue to oppose President Assad’s rule. They live in makeshift camps and newly built shelters. Most have been displaced more than once, so life here was already very hard before the earthquake.
The international help that reaches this part of Syria is tiny. Many of the earthquake victims were taken to the Bab al-Hawa hospital, which is supported by the Syrian American Medical Society. They treated 350 patients in the immediate aftermath, general surgeon Dr Farouk al Omar tells me, all with only one ultrasound.
When I ask him about international aid, he shakes his head, and laughs. “We cannot talk more about this topic. We spoke about that a lot. And nothing happened. Even in a normal situation, we don’t have enough medical staff. And just imagine what it’s like in this catastrophe after earthquake,” he says.
At the end of the corridor, a tiny baby lies in an incubator. Mohammad Ghayyath Rajab’s skull is bruised and bandaged, and his small chest rises and falls thanks to a respirator. Doctors can’t be sure, but they think he’s around three months old. Both of his parents were killed in the earthquake, and a neighbour found him crying alone in the dark in the rubble of his home.
In the town of Harem, Fadel Ghadab lost his aunt and cousin.
“How is it possible that the UN has sent a mere 14 trucks worth of aid?” he asks. “We’ve received nothing here. People are in the streets.”
More aid has made it into Syria, but not much and it is too little, too late.
In the absence of international rescue teams in Harem, children remove rubble. A man and two boys use a car-jack to prize apart the collapsed remains of a building, carefully salvaging animal feed onto a blanket. Life isn’t cheaper in Syria, but it is more precarious.
The day is ending and I have to leave. I cross the border back into Turkey and soon get stuck in a traffic jam or ambulances, construction equipment – the gridlock of a national and international aid response.
My phone pings with a message from a Turkish rescuer telling me his team found a woman alive after 132 hours buried under her home. Behind me in Syria, as darkness falls, there is only silence.
On Sunday, the number of fatalities from the significant earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria reached 33,000. (February 12). The United Nations (UN) has warned that the final number could double. Since the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that shook the region on Monday, 29,605 people have died in Turkey, while 3,574 people have died in Syria, according to officials and medical personnel.
The confirmed total now stands at 33,179.
The UN expressed its disappointment on Sunday over the failure to deliver urgently required aid to Syria’s war-torn regions.
UN relief chief Martin Griffiths said that much more was required for the millions of people whose homes had been destroyed, despite the fact that a convoy carrying supplies for northwest Syria had arrived via Turkey.
“We have so far failed the people in northwest Syria.” They rightly feel abandoned. Looking for international help that hasn’t arrived,” Griffiths said on Twitter.
At the #Türkiye–#Syria border today. We have so far failed the people in north-west Syria. They rightly feel abandoned. Looking for international help that hasn’t arrived. My duty and our obligation is to correct this failure as fast as we can. That’s my focus now.
In Syria, years of conflict have all but destroyed the healthcare system. Supplies have been slow to arrive in Syria.
The UN convoy of ten trucks crossed into northwest Syria via the Bab al-Hawa border crossing, according to an AFP correspondent, carrying shelter kits including plastic sheeting, ropes and screws and nails, as well as blankets, mattresses and carpets.
In a joint operation by the North American neighbours, a US fighter jet shot down an unidentified cylindrical object over Canada.
After a week-long saga over a rumoured Chinese spy balloon, North America appeared to be on high alert. The shootdown on Saturday was the second such action in as many days.
The shootdown was first reported by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who also promised that his country’s forces would recover and examine the aircraft’s wreckage.
Canadian defence minister Anita Anand declined to speculate on the origin of the object, which she said was small and cylindrical in shape. She stopped short of describing it as a balloon but said it was smaller than the Chinese balloon shot down off South Carolina’s coast a week ago, but similar in appearance.
She said it was flying at 12,100 metres (40,000 feet) and posed a risk to civilian air traffic when it was shot down at 3:41 EST (20:41 GMT).
“There is no reason to believe that the impact of the object in Canadian territory is of any public concern,” Anand told a news conference.
The Pentagon said the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) detected the object over Alaska late on Friday evening. US fighter jets from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, monitored the object as it crossed over into Canadian airspace, where Canadian CF-18 and CP-140 aircraft joined the formation.
“A US F-22 shot down the object in Canadian territory using an AIM 9X missile following close coordination between US and Canadian authorities,” Pentagon spokesperson Brigadier General Patrick Ryder said in a statement
US President Joe Biden authorised the country’s military to work with Canada to take down the high-altitude craft after a call between Biden and Trudeau, the Pentagon said. The White House said Biden and Trudeau agreed to continue close coordination to “defend our airspace”.
“The leaders discussed the importance of recovering the object in order to determine more details on its purpose or origin,” the White House said in a statement.
Shortly after the 3:41 pm (2041 GMT) downing of the object, aviation authorities also shut down part of the airspace over the northwest US state of Montana after detecting what they called a “radar anomaly,” the US Northern Command said.
In a sign of jitters over possible intrusions, Northern Command said US fighter jets took to the skies but “did not identify any object to correlate to the radar hits”. Skies were then reopened to commercial air traffic.
Suspected Chinese spy balloon
A day earlier, Biden ordered another shootdown of an unidentified flying object near Deadhorse, Alaska. The US military on Saturday remained tight-lipped about what, if anything, it had learned as recovery efforts were under way on the Alaskan sea ice.
The Pentagon on Friday offered only a few details, including that the object was the size of a small car, it was flying at about 12,100 metres and could not manoeuvre and appeared to be unmanned. US officials have been trying to learn about the object since it was first spotted on Thursday.
“We have no further details at this time about the object, including its capabilities, purpose or origin,” Northern Command said on Saturday.
It noted difficult arctic weather conditions, including wind chill, snow and limited daylight that could hinder search and recovery efforts.
“Personnel will adjust recovery operations to maintain safety,” Northern Command said.
On February 4, a US F-22 fighter jet brought down what the US government called a Chinese surveillance balloon off the coast of South Carolina, following its week-long journey across the US and portions of Canada. China’s government has said it was a civilian research vessel.
Some US legislators criticised Biden for not shooting down the Chinese balloon sooner. The US military had recommended waiting until it was over the ocean out of fear of injuries from falling debris.
US personnel have been scouring the ocean to recover debris and the undercarriage of electronic gadgetry since the shootdown of the 60-meter-high (200-foot-tall) Chinese suspected surveillance balloon.
The Pentagon has said a significant amount of the balloon had already been recovered or located, suggesting US officials may soon have more information about any Chinese espionage capabilities onboard the vessel.
Sea conditions on February 10 “permitted dive and underwater unmanned vehicle (UUV) activities and the retrieval of additional debris from the sea floor,” Northern Command said.
“The public may see US Navy vessels moving to and from the site as they conduct offload and resupply activities.”
In retaliation for an alleged Chinese spy balloon that crossed US airspace, the US blacklisted six Chinese entities it claimed were connected to Beijing’s aerospace programmes.
The action is likely to intensify the diplomatic dispute between the US and China, which already worsened as a result of the surveillance balloon that the US ultimately shot down last weekend. Beijing has maintained that the balloon was a weather craft that had veered off course, while the US claimed it was equipped to detect and gather intelligence signals.
The US Bureau of Industry and Security claimed on Friday that the six Chinese companies were being pursued for “their
“The PLA is utilizing High Altitude Balloons (HAB) for intelligence and reconnaissance activities,” it said.
The US Deputy Secretary of Commerce Don Graves said on Twitter his department “will not hesitate to continue to use” such restrictions and other regulatory and enforcement tools “to protect US national security and sovereignty”.
The Commerce Department will not hesitate to continue to use the Entity List and our other regulatory and enforcement tools to protect U.S. national security and sovereignty.
The six entities are Beijing Nanjiang Aerospace Technology Co, China Electronics Technology Group Corporation 48th Research Institute, Dongguan Lingkong Remote Sensing Technology Co, Eagles Men Aviation Science and Technology Group Co, Guangzhou Tian-Hai-Xiang Aviation Technology Co, and Shanxi Eagles Men Aviation Science and Technology Group Co.
The blacklisting will make it more difficult for the five companies and one research institute to obtain US technology exports.
Also on Friday, a US military fighter jet shot down an unknown object flying off the remote northern coast of Alaska on orders from President Joe Biden.
The object was downed because it reportedly posed a threat to the safety of civilian flights rather than any knowledge it was engaged in surveillance.
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters the “high-altitude object” was flying at 12,000 metres (40,000 ft) over Alaska, posing a threat to civilian aviation.
“We don’t know who owns this object,” Kirby said during a news conference, adding that it was significantly smaller than the Chinese balloon that flew over the country last week.
“We’re calling this an object because that’s the best description we have right now,” he said. “We don’t have any information that would confirm a stated purpose for this object.”
Former Ben Ali confidant Eltaief and two other key political activists have been detained.
According to attorneys, the Tunisian police have detained two important political activists as well as powerful businessman Kamel Eltaief, who was once a confidant of former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
Eltaief, 68, was detained on Saturday at his home in Tunis, the capital, according to his lawyer Nizar Ayed, who did not provide any additional information.
Eltaief was viewed by many Tunisians as a representation of past corruption in the North African country, particularly by Ennahdha party supporters who were fierce opponents of President Kais Saied.
The influential power broker was involved in the 1987 coup that forced former President Habib Bourguiba from power on medical grounds, and was long considered a crony of Bourguiba’s successor Ben Ali. Eltaief fell out of grace with Ben Ali in 1992 after a feud with his wife Leila Trabelsi.
After the fall of Ben Ali in 2011, the businessman moved closer to the opposition. In 2012, he was investigated for “conspiracy against state security”, but no charges were brought against him and the case was closed in 2014.
Police also arrested Abdelhamid Jelassi, a former senior leader of the Ennahdha, as well as political activist Khayam Turki.
Seven police officers on Saturday evening searched Jelassi’s home and confiscated his mobile phone before arresting him, the party said without providing further details. According to Tunisian media, Jelassi was arrested on “suspicion of a plot against state security”.
Ennahdha, the biggest party in the opposition, said the arrest of Turki was aimed at intimidating the president’s opponents.
The Salvation Front, the main opposition coalition against Saied, condemned his arrest, saying police had questioned him several times for meeting opposition figures at his home.
Turki’s lawyer Abdelaziz Essid, who said his client was not known to be wanted by the authorities, said he was arrested in an early morning police raid.
“He was taken to an unknown destination,” said Essid, adding Turki had not been “facing any legal proceedings” to justify his arrest. No further details were immediately available.
Rights groups have voiced increasing concern over the lack of political freedoms in Tunisia since Saied’s seizure of most powers in 2021 and his moves to assume ultimate authority over the judiciary. Since Saied’s takeover, Tunisia has seen a spike in the arrest and prosecution of politicians, journalists and others.
His opponents have accused him of authoritarianism in the birthplace of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings.
The large oil companies, including ExxonMobil and Norway’s Equinor, as well as UK-based BP and Shell, have been announcing astounding profit numbers.
They are all profiting from the rise in oil and gas prices as a result of the invasion of Ukraine.
People around the world struggle to pay their energy bills and fill up their cars while these businesses make huge profits, which has prompted calls for higher taxes on these businesses.
What is their method of income generation, and should the government intervene to put a stop to it?
Why has the oil price soared?
Oil and gas are traded around the world, and if supplies are short and demand high, sellers can charge more, and the price goes up.
Before the Ukraine war, Russia was the world’s largest exporter of oil and natural gas.
A lot of the money that people paid to buy that oil and gas went to the Russian government – those exports made up 45% of the Russian government budget in 2021.
After the invasion, Western countries, including the UK and EU, tried to stop (or at least massively reduce) their energy imports from Russia, to avoid funding the Russian military and supporting a hostile regime.
Countries that didn’t want to buy from Russia had to pay much higher prices for oil produced elsewhere.
As economies recovered from the COVID-19 lockdowns and began to function normally, oil prices had already been rising.
The day after the Russian invasion, the oil price went above $100 a barrel, and peaked at over $127 in March, before coming back down to around $85. Gas prices also soared after the invasion.
Oil and natural gas are crucial to almost every aspect of modern life. Oil is used to make petrol and diesel, and natural gas is used for heating and cooking.
They’re also used in agriculture, electricity generation, and other industrial processes which make everything from fertilizer to plastics.
So a sustained rise in oil and gas prices pushes up the cost of many other things we buy, driving the cost of living crisis that has gripped the UK – and other countries – in recent months.
Why do soaring prices mean more profits?
Oil companies make money by locating oil and gas reserves buried in rocks under the earth’s surface, and drilling down to release them.
The costs don’t vary that much as the price goes up or down, but the money they make from selling it does.
So when oil prices soared after the invasion of Ukraine, the money these companies made from selling oil and gas massively increased as well.
How much profit did Shell and BP make last year?
On Tuesday, BP reported record annual profits of $27.7 billion (£23 billion) for 2022 as it scaled back plans to reduce the amount of oil and gas it produces by 2030. Those profits were double the previous year’s figure.
In February, Shell reported its highest profits in 115 years. Profits will reach $39.9 billion (£32.2 billion) in 2022, more than doubling the previous year’s total.
The profits they make don’t all disappear – lots of ordinary people own shares in BP, Shell, and other global oil companies. This may be via their pension funds, and they may not even be aware of it.
Some of the extra profits are paid to shareholders through higher dividends, and buying back shares (which increases the share price).
But as long as the billions roll in while customers struggle to pay their bills, the calls for higher taxes will continue.
How much tax do oil and gas producers pay?
Big oil companies made their record profits even after paying billions to governments around the world.
BP and Shell are in a complicated position because they are headquartered in the UK but produce a relatively small amount of oil and gas in UK waters. They make most of their profits from activities around the world.
Shell paid $134m (£110m) tax on its UK operations in 2022, out of a worldwide tax bill of $13bn.
BP paid $2.2bn (£1.8bn) in taxes on its UK operations, out of a global tax bill of $15bn.
How are oil firms taxed in the UK?
Oil companies already pay a tax on their profits from oil and gas production in the UK of 40% – which is higher than taxes on other companies.
But they can reduce that tax bill by deducting the cost of shutting down old oil rigs, or offsetting future investments and losses from earlier years.
In some years, BP and Shell have paid no tax on UK operations, and received payments from the UK government instead.
After the invasion of Ukraine, the government faced calls to introduce an extra “windfall tax” on energy company profits to help pay for soaring energy bills.
This was introduced in May 2022, and increased from 25% to 35% in November. It is now expected to raise around £40bn extra from all the companies operating in UK waters between 2022 and 2028.
However, the windfall tax only applies to the profits on UK oil and gas production, which only account for a small share of some firms’ profits.
And firms can deduct more than 90% of the cost of new exploration and production from their windfall tax bills, significantly reducing what they have to pay.
The windfall tax accounted for all of Shell’s UK tax bill and $700 million (£538 million) of BP’s.
They face calls to pay even more tax
Politicians, environmentalists, trade unions and poverty campaigners have attacked oil companies’ record profits, and argued for higher windfall taxes.
They say high prices are the result of something beyond the oil firm’s control – war, and that it’s not fair that oil companies are profiting from people’s suffering.
Some say higher windfall taxes are a good way for governments to raise money because they’re easy to collect and hard to avoid.
Even the former boss of Shell himself, Ben van Beurden, wondered if it was inevitable that governments would need to tax energy producers more to protect the poorest in society.
But oil firms argue that a higher windfall tax would make them less willing to invest in producing in the UK, and that they would search for oil elsewhere where taxes are lower.
Harbour Energy, which produces more oil and gas in the UK than anyone else, is cutting jobs and reconsidering its UK investments because of the windfall tax.
If the UK government decided totax BP and Shell on their globalprofits more heavily, they could potentially move their headquarters out of the country – escaping the new tax, and depriving the UK of much of the revenues they currently pay.
Image caption,A BP oil rig in North sea
Oil companies have to operate in a world where the price of oil can go down as well as up, with little warning. Money made in the good years helps to balance out years when oil prices are low.
Many oil companies lost billions from Russian investments last year – BP wrote off $24bn of investments in the Russian oil company Rosneft, for example.
They also have to invest billions to find new reserves of oil to keep supplies running until the world switches over to renewable sources of power.
Energy companies have a big role to play in that switch-over, too. BP and Shell invest some of the billions they make from oil and gas into renewable power such as solar and wind farms, and charging stations for electric cars.
BP boss Bernard Looney said the British company was “helping provide the energy the world needs” while investing the transition to green energy.
Shell chief executive Wael Sawan said that these are “incredibly difficult times – we are seeing inflation rampant around the world” but that Shell was playing its part by investing in renewable technologies. Its chief financial officer Sinead Gorman added that Shell had paid $13bn in taxes globally in 2022.
However, BP scaled back its plans to cut its carbon emissions this year because demand for oil and gas is so strong.
Does the energy cap reduce oil company profits?
The energy price cap was introduced in 2019 to stop companies from overcharging people who didn’t shop around for cheaper deals. It targets energy suppliers, and doesn’t affect the profits of oil and gas producers.
A teenage girl who was critically hurt passed away in a Warrington park.
At 15:13 GMT on Saturday, officers were called to Culcheth Linear Park in response to reports of a girl who had suffered serious injuries.
Despite calling for emergency services, she was pronounced dead on the spot. Her heirs have been notified.
Despite the fact that the investigating officers are aware of the online rumours, Cheshire Constabulary Det Ch Insp Adam Waller urged people not to speculate.
He said: “We are following numerous lines of enquiry to establish what led to the victim’s death, and local residents will see an increased presence of police officers in the area while we investigate this incident.
“At this stage, we do not believe there is a wider threat to anyone else; however, if you have concerns, please do speak to a local officer.”
An area has been cordoned off close to where she was found, but formal identification has yet to take place.
Charlotte Nichols, Labour MP for Warrington North, said she had spoken to the police borough commander and urged anyone who was nearby at the time or who has CCTV or dashcam footage or information that might help the investigation to contact police.
“I urge anyone with any information, no matter how small, to get in touch,” Det Ch Insp Waller said.
Andrzej Duda, the president of Poland, said sending F-16 aircraft would be a “very serious decision” that was “not easy to take” in an exclusive interview with Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday.
Since Russia’s invasion, Poland has been one of Ukraine’s loudest supporters.
It was one of several nations that announced plans to send more tanks, ammunition, and equipment to the front lines last month.
President Duda’s comments come despite him and President Zelensky having spoken this week, at the end of the Ukrainian leader’s surprise headline-grabbing European tour. In London, President Zelensky used his speech in Parliament to call for the means to help fight Russia in the air:
“I appeal to you and the world with the simple, and yet most important words – combat aircraft for Ukraine, wings for freedom.”
Ukraine’s leader repeated that call in Paris and Brussels, in a rare departure from his country, under the tightest of security. He made headlines right around the world.
In Warsaw, President Duda told me sending F-16 jets would pose a “serious problem” because, with fewer than 50 of the aircraft in the Polish air force, “we have not enough… and we would need many more of them.”
He also stressed that combat aircraft, like the F-16s, have a “very serious need for maintenance” so it’s “not enough just to send a few planes”.
Image caption,President Duda with Laura Kuenssberg in Warsaw
With Poland being a Nato member, said Mr Duda, any decision to provide fighter jets had to be a “joint decision” – rather than one for any single country to take.
There are also nerves about whether providing planes would pull Nato directly into the conflict—and even into war against Russia itself. At the start of the Russian invasion in 2022, Duda said sending jets would “open a military intervention in the Ukrainian conflict.” But in direct response to Ukraine’s request for planes this week, the Polish leader’s comments are significant.
As Ukraine’s neighbour, President Duda has been one of the most ardent supporters of President Zelensky and has contributed vast amounts of military aid, becoming the main supplier of heavy weaponry, including infantry fighting vehicles and artillery, drones, and ammunition.
Duda was also at the forefront of pushing other allies to promise to provide tanks in recent weeks.
Image caption,President Zelensky (l) met Mr Duda in Poland on Friday at the end of his surprise European tour
After notable reluctance from Germany, and a fraught debate across Europe about the risks of escalating the conflict, Leopard tanks will arrive in Ukraine, along with Challengers from the UK and Abrams from the US.
Poland has also provided homes to millions of Ukrainian refugees.
President Duda is adamant that “weaponry has to be delivered to Ukraine all the time… it needs armaments.” But it is clear he doesn’t think sending combat aircraft in large numbers is likely from Poland or any other ally, at least in the short term.
Yes, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said “nothing was off the table” while he savoured his photo opportunity with President Zelensky in front of a tank this week – jeans tucked into unlaced boots and tieless, alongside the Ukrainian leader in his familiar army sweatshirt and combat trousers.
But before too long, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace was making plain that would mean training for pilots and other support first. No UK jets will take off for Ukraine any time soon.
Image caption,Polish F-16 fighter jets taking part in a Nato exercise, 12 October 2022
All week, British politicians have been falling over themselves to associate with the biggest political celebrity in the world right now, President Zelenksy, sharing their blurry phone snaps of his historic Westminster Hall speech and giving interviews about how moving it was to be there.
In Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron greeted him like a film star in front of the Elysee Palace. EU leaders then frantically tweeted pictures of their own “grip and grin” moments with the Ukrainian leader later.
There is staunch support for President Zelensky without doubt. It’s not just shown in flowery language and promises of commitment but, as President Duda explains, with guns, tanks and drones, plus support for refugees, rather than selfies with MPs. Western allies emphasise how countries have come together in a way that will have disappointed and frustrated Vladimir Putin.
Leaders, like Poland’s president, underline the threat they feel to their own countries. Talking to him in Warsaw about the conflict is a world away from conversations in Westminster, with the Russian border at Kaliningrad only about 200 miles away.
The dilemma over jets is another example of the fraught calculations our leaders face. What is practically possible in terms of supporting Ukraine? And what is politically and diplomatically viable, without provoking a wider war?
Poland and other countries’ firm backing does not mean the West, or even Ukraine’s closest allies, will or can say “yes” to his every request. One senior diplomatic source suggests President Zelensky is, of course, well aware of this.
His headline-grabbing journey this week was not just about the jets, and it doesn’t look like it will soon result in “wings for freedom.” But as we approach the anniversary of Russia’s invasion, his careful choreography and powerful imagery on his European tour will have reminded not just Western politicians but also their publics of what is at stake.
Despite some miraculous rescues, the number of fatalities from the earthquake in Turkey and Syria has surpassed 28,000, and the prospect of finding many more survivors is dwindling.
Search efforts were suspended on Saturday due to clashes between unnamed groups, according to German rescuers and the Austrian army.
According to one rescuer, security is predicted to deteriorate as food supplies get low.
The president of Turkey declared that he would use his emergency powers to punish lawbreakers.
An Austrian army spokesperson said early on Saturday that clashes between unidentified groups in the Hatay province had left dozens of personnel from the Austrian Forces Disaster Relief Unit seeking shelter in a base camp with other international organisations.
“There is increasing aggression between factions in Turkey,” Lieutenant Colonel Pierre Kugelweis said in a statement. “The chances of saving a life bears no reasonable relation to the safety risk.”
Hours after Austria paused its rescue efforts, the country’s ministry of defence said that the Turkish army had stepped in to offer protection, allowing the rescue operations to resume.
The German branch of the search and rescue group ISAR and Germany’s Federal Agency for Technical Relief (TSW) also suspended operations, citing security concerns.
“There are more and more reports of clashes between different factions, shots have also been fired,” said ISAR spokesperson Stefan Heine.
Steven Bayer, operations manager of Isar, said he expected security to worsen as food, water, and hope become more scarce.
“We are watching the security situation very closely as it develops,” he said.
The Vice President of Turkey, Fuat Oktay announced on Saturday the death toll in Turkey has risen to 24,617.
While Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, hasn’t commented on the reported unrest in Hatay, he did reiterate on Saturday that the government would take action against those involved in crimes in the region.
“We’ve declared a state of emergency,” Mr Erdogan said during a visit to the disaster zone today. “It means that, from now on, the people who are involved in looting or kidnapping should know that the state’s firm hand is on their backs.”
State media reported on Saturday that 48 people had been arrested for looting, according to AFP. Turkish state media reported several guns were seized, along with cash, jewellery and bank cards.
A 26-year-old man searching for a work colleague in a collapsed building in Antakya told Reuters: “People were smashing the windows and fences of shops and cars.”
Turkish police have also reportedly detained 12 people over collapsed buildings in the provinces of Gaziantep and Sanliurfa. They included contractors, according to the DHA news agency.
There are also expected to be more arrests after Mr Oktay told reporters late Saturday that prosecutors issued 113 arrest warrants over the buildings.
At least 6,000 buildings collapsed in Turkey, raising questions about if the large-scale tragedy could have been avoided and whether President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government could have done more to save lives.
With elections looming, the president’s future is on the line after spending 20 years in power and his pleas for national unity going unheeded.
Mr Erdogan has admitted shortcomings in the response, but he appeared to blame fate on a visit to one disaster zone: “Such things have always happened. It’s part of destiny’s plan.”
Miraculous rescues after 100 hours under rubble
Among those rescued on Saturday were a family of five pulled from the rubble in Turkey’s Gaziantep province.
AP news agency reported the parents, two daughters and son were brought to safety after five days under their collapsed home, to cries of “God is great”.
The same outlet reported that a seven-year-old girl was pulled from the debris in the province of Hatay after almost 132 hours under the rubble.
The BBC has also published footage of the remarkable rescue of two sisters in Antakya, southern Turkey, from Wednesday.
Watch: Rescuers use specialist cameras to free Irem And Merve from the rubble of their building in Antakya
The quake was described as the “worst event in 100 years in this region” by the United Nations aid chief, who was in the Turkish province of Kahramanmaras on Saturday.
“I think it’s the worst natural disaster that I’ve ever seen and it’s also the most extraordinary international response,” Martin Griffiths told the BBC’s Lyse Doucet in Turkey.
“We have more than a hundred countries who have sent people here so there’s been incredible response but there’s a need for it,” he added.
Mr Griffiths has called for regional politics to be put aside in the face of the disaster – and there are some signs that this is happening.
And there are reports that the Syrian government has agreed to let UN aid into areas controlled by opposition groups, with whom they have been engaged in a bitter civil war since 2011.
The death toll in Syria from the earthquake now stands at more than 3,500, according to AFP, but new figures have not been published since Friday.
There has been criticism that the international effort to send aid to Syria has not been fast enough.
Ismail al Abdullah of the Syrian Civil Defence Force, or White Helmets, which operates in rebel-held areas, told the BBC’s Quentin Sommerville that the organisation had stopped searching for survivors.
The international community has “blood on its hands,” he said. “We needed rescue equipment that never came.”
Sivanka Dhanapala, the Syria representative of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told AlJazeera that as many 5.3 million Syrians may be homeless following the quake.
“That is a huge number, and it comes from a population that is already experiencing mass displacement,” he said.
Marc Tarabella and Andrea Cozzolino are in custody. It is related to an inquiry into allegations of bribery and corruption involving the Gulf nation of Qatar and several members of the European Parliament.
In relation to the “Qatargate” corruption scandal that shook the European Parliament in December, authorities detained two EU lawmakers on Friday.
Marc Tarabella, a member of the European Parliament, was questioned by Belgian prosecutors on Friday afternoon. Police had previously carried out “several raids” at his Anthisnes residence, the town hall, and a bank safe deposit box.
On behalf of Belgian prosecutors, Italian finance police detained Andrea Cozzolino on Friday at a clinic in Naples.
The two Members of the European Parliament are accused of accepting bribes, a charge they both deny.
European Parliament waives suspects’ immunity
The arrests come after the European Parliament voted to waive the immunity of Tarabella and Cozzolino last week.
Before the vote, a parliamentary report compiled on Tarabella alleged that he “may have been involved in acts of corruption connected with the interference by one or more states aimed at influencing debates and decisions taken by the European Parliament.”
Both men have also been expelled from the center-left Socialists and Democrats group.
Italian member of the European Parliamentt Andrea Cozzolino was arrested at a clinic in Naples
What is the ‘Qatargate’ corruption scandal?
In December 2022, police raided a number of homes, offices and hotels in Brussels and Italy and found roughly €1.5 million ($1.6 million) in cash.
Four people were charged with corruption, money laundering and membership in a criminal organization after the arrests: Greek then-Parliamentary Vice President Eva Kaili; her partner, Italian Francesco Giorgi; Italian former European Parliament legislator Pier Antonio Panzeri; and Niccolo Figa-Talamanca, the former head of an NGO.
In January, Panzeri struck a deal with prosecutors to share information in exchange for a lighter sentence.
Belgian media reported that he admitted to giving Tarabella “between €120,000 and €140,000 ($128,000 and $150,000)” for handling matters linked to Qatar.
Tarabella’s lawyer confirmed that the member of the European Parliament had visited Qatar twice.
The attorney however added that he had been fully transparent about trips to construction sites and work camps, and was focused on addressing human rights issues and freedom of expression.
The official King Charles III coronation logo has been unveiled by Buckingham Palace for use in street celebrations, social media, and souvenirs.
Sir Jony Ive, a well-known designer of cutting-edge Apple products like the iPhone, created it.
In this more conventional picture, flowers are arranged to resemble the St. Edward’s crown that was worn during the coronation.
According to Sir Jony, the floral pattern highlights the “optimism of spring” and embodies the King’s love of the natural world.
Image caption,King Charles and logo designer Sir Jony Ive
“The design was inspired by King Charles’s love of the planet, nature, and his deep concern for the natural world,” said the former Apple design guru, who is more usually associated with sleek tech designs of equipment such as iMacs and iPods.
The logo, to be used for events over the coronation long weekend in May, features a rose, thistle, daffodil and shamrock – emblems from across the United Kingdom.
It’s in contrast to the very stark design of the new King Charles stamps revealed this week, which has no crown or decoration.
The logo, also available in a Welsh-language version, is the latest detail to be revealed from the planned celebrations to mark the coronation, which will be held at Westminster Abbey on 6 May.
The day will include a carriage procession and traditional appearances on the Buckingham Palace balcony, although it is still not known who will be attending – with no confirmation yet whether the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will be there.
On Sunday 7 May there will be a music concert and light show at Windsor Castle, and this week a public ballot opened for the 10,000 free tickets on offer for the event.
There will be an extra bank holiday on Monday 8 May, with events highlighting the work of volunteers.
Following violent protests sparked by a split within the nation’s Orthodox Church, the Internet watchdog NetBlocks reported that access to social media platforms has been restricted in Ethiopia.
When three church officials last month professed themselves archbishops and established their own governing body, protests broke out in the Oromia region. While some protesters resisted it, others were in favour of it.
According to network data that NetBlocks had gathered, access to Facebook, Messenger, TikTok, and Telegram has been severely constrained.
⚠️ Confirmed: Network metrics show that social media and messaging platforms Facebook, Messenger, TikTok and Telegram have been restricted in #Ethiopia amid anti-government protests over a split in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewhado Church #EOTC
The tweet came hours after the church said at least 30 people have been killed in the protests since February 4.
The church’s statement called for demonstrations on Sunday against the new governing body as it accused the Ethiopian government of “meddling” in the church’s internal affairs after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed asked his ministers to stay out of the dispute.
The Ethiopian state has traditionally maintained close ties to theOrthodox Church, to which more than 40 percent of the population belongs.
Government spokesperson Legesse Tulu did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday. The government said in a statement on Thursday that the upcoming protest was banned to prevent violence.
Ethiopian authorities have previously shut down or restricted access to the internet during periods of political unrest, including in response to protests in 2020 that followed the killing of a popular singer from Oromia.
Internet and phone communications were also shut down in the northern region of Tigray for most of a two-year war that ended in a ceasefire in November.
The Orthodox Church insisted Sunday’s protest would go ahead and said the government’s ban constituted “a declaration to destroy the church once and for all”.
Oromia, home to Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group, the Oromo, has experienced violent conflict for many years, part of wider unrest in Ethiopia, a multiethnic country where power has long been contested between federal and regional authorities.
New Zealand is getting ready for a severe storm that could hit areas of the country that have already suffered from deadly flooding.
From Saturday night, Cyclone Gabrielle is anticipated to make landfall on the nation’s North Island, possibly bringing with it strong winds and additional heavy rain.
In case they become stranded at home, residents have been advised to make sure they have enough supplies to last three days.
The storm strikes just a few weeks after Auckland was flooded by torrential rain.
There, tens of thousands of sandbags have been distributed due to worries that the weakened infrastructure and soggy ground have made homes more susceptible to flooding.
Evacuation shelters have been set up once again, and Air New Zealand, the national carrier, has cancelled several domestic flights ahead of the cyclone’s arrival.
Photographs and videos posted on social media showed long queues at supermarkets and bare shelves as people prepared for more severe weather.
Local media have reported that New Zealand’s most northern region, Northland, has already begun to experience high winds.
Cyclone Gabrielle has been downgraded from a category three storm to a category two, meaning less destructive winds are now expected.
However, forecasters have warned that they could still be strong enough to damage trees and power lines and that enough rain could fall to cause further flooding and landslides in the coming days.
The Coromandel Peninsula and the Tairāwhiti/Gisborne region, which were also affected by the recent torrential rain, have been placed under the most serious weather alert.
Residents in flood-prone areas have been told to prepare to evacuate.
“There’s a degree of nervousness and anxiety around this coming event,” the Thames-Coromandel district’s mayor, Len Salt, told the Stuff news website.
“Coromandel people are pretty resilient, but the fact we’ve been in this mode dealing with storm events from the beginning of January…people are tired.”
Meanwhile, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology has said that conditions on the remote territory of Norfolk Island have begun to deteriorate because of Cyclone Gabrielle.
The island, which lies north of New Zealand, has also been placed under a red alert. Residents have been warned to stay indoors and to find the strongest part of their homes under which to take shelter.
Only three cyclones have come within a 50km (31 mile) range of the island in the past 30-40 years.
Toronto’s mayor abruptly resigned after admitting to having a relationship with a former employee.
Shortly after the Toronto Star reported that he had an affair with the 31-year-old woman, whom he did not name, John Tory made his announcement.
According to him, the relationship began during the COVID-19 pandemic and was “ended this year by consent of both parties.”
The relationship was described by the 68-year-old as “a serious error in judgement.”
In a statement, Mr. Tory said: “I am deeply sorry and I sincerely apologise to the residents of Toronto and to everyone else who was harmed as a result of my actions.”
“Most of all, I apologise to my wife, Barb, and to my family, whom I’ve let down more than anyone else,” he added.
Mr Tory said he would work with city employees and deputy mayor Jennifer McKelvie to ensure an orderly transition to a new administration.
He added: “I deeply regret having to step away from a job that I love in a city that I love even more.”
“I believe, in my heart, that it is best to fully commit myself to the work that is required to repair these most important (family) relationships as well.”
He took office in December 2014, having beaten Doug Ford and Olivia Chow in the election.
After being caught up in the Turkey earthquake, a heartbroken family travelling from theUK for a funeral found themselves in the midst of a catastrophe.
After her father passed away on Tuesday, January 31, Eylem Yildiz and three relatives travelled to Besni for the ceremony on Wednesday.
Busra Yildiz, the daughter who resides in Cardiff, remained in the UK to take care of her sisters.
The mother, aunt, uncle, and 1-year-old cousin of Busra were scheduled to arrive last week.
But bad weather meant their journey home was delayed.
When two earthquakes struck on Monday, the apartment block they were staying in was reduced to rubble.
Eylem has yet to be found, while Busra’s grandmother, Saadet Onder, and three other family members from Turkey are also missing.
Her aunt Emine Onder-Nizan, her uncle Engin Onder-Nizan and her cousin Mete Onder-Nizan, who all travelled from the UK, have been found.
Image caption, Busra’s boyfriend Sam Thomas dubbed the disaster “carnage”
The death toll from the disaster is now approaching 24,000.
The carnage unfolded when a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck near Gaziantep, and was followed by multiple aftershocks.
One, almost as large as the first, measured 7.5 magnitudes.
Busra, who was born in Besni and brought up in Swindon, travelled to Turkey on Monday to help.
The magnitude of the earthquake was classified as “major” on the official magnitude scale Mr Thomas, from Bridgend, said: “On Tuesday, there were signs of life; they think they heard their grandmother because there were noises coming from the building.
“They were able to speak to the aunt on Wednesday. Then everything went quiet.
The 24-year-old said signs of life had been detected with heat-sensitive cameras.
A lack of machinery meant people were digging through rubble by hand.
He called the situation “complete carnage.”
Image caption, Sam Thomas describes his girlfriend Busra as “so brave”
Mr Thomas, a web designer, said: “It’s just heartbreaking to know they can hear people in there.
“This week, Busra witnessed childhood friends and family being dragged out dead.
“She has seen dead children. I cannot imagine what she is feeling like.”
The UK’s Disasters Emergency Committee’s raised £32.9 million on its first day, including $5 million matched by the UK government, for Turkey and Syria.
Busra, 24, has been sleeping in a “fabricated pod”. Her boyfriend said: “She is so strong, I don’t know how she does it.”
He praised his girlfriend for being “so brave”.
“I am praying they are all alive and hoping they will all come out,” Mr Thomas said.
“I really want my loved ones out of that building.
“I believe in my heart of hearts they are going to be found and they are going to be okay.
“They are all religious people and strong women. It is breaking my heart they are being put through this.”
Brazil and Switzerland have called for the UN Security Council to meet next week to discuss its response to the situation in Syria, which was also affected.
Mr Thomas said he was feeling “pretty horrendous”, and he is being supported by friends and family.
“This has been the worst five days of my life, it feels like one big day,” he said.
“It’s not my blood family, and I can’t imagine what it would be like to have my mom trapped there in a building.”
The most devastating earthquake to strike Turkey since 1939 has sparked lot of controversy over whether such a serious tragedy could have been prevented and whetherPresident Erdogan’sadministration could have done more to save lives.
After 20 years in power, he is facing elections, and despite his repeated calls for national unity, no one has listened.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan acknowledged that the response fell short, but he seemed to put the blame for fate on a trip to one disaster area: “Such occurrences have always been common. It’s part of the plan of destiny.”
Turkey has earthquake building regulations that date back more than 80 years and is located on two fault lines. But the two earthquakes on Monday were much more powerful than anything recorded since 1939. The initial quake’s registered magnitude 7.8 at 04:17, followed by another of 7.5 dozens of miles away.
Delayed search and rescue
It required a massive rescue operation spread across 10 of Turkey’s 81 provinces.
But it took time for the response to build and some villages could not be reached for days. More than 30,000 people from the professional and voluntary sector eventually arrived, along with teams from many other countries.
More than 6,000 buildings collapsed and workers from Turkey’s Afad disaster authority were themselves caught up in the earthquakes.
Those initial hours were critical but roads were damaged and search and rescue teams struggled to get through until day two or day three.
Turkey has more experience of earthquakes than almost any other country but the founder of the main volunteer rescue group believes this time, politics got in the way.
After the last major earthquake in August 1999, it was the armed forces who led the operation, but the Erdogan government has sought to curb their power in Turkish society.
Image caption,Volunteers from the Akut foundation have joined the government’s main disaster agency in searching for survivors
“All over the world, the most organised and logistically powerful organisations are the armed forces; they have enormous means in their hands,” said the head of Akut foundation, Nasuh Mahruki. “So you have to use this in a disaster.”
The potential rescue effort was now far bigger than in 1999, Mr Mahruki said, but with the military left out of the planning it had to wait for an order from the government: “This created a delay in the start of rescue and search operations.”
President Erdogan has accepted that search efforts were not as fast as the government wanted, despite Turkey having the “largest search and rescue team in the world right now”.
‘I warned them’
For years, Turks have been warned of the potential of a big earthquake, but few expected it to be along the East Anatolian fault, which stretches across south-eastern Turkey, because most of the larger tremors have hit the fault in the north.
When a quake in January 2020 hit Elazig, north-east of Monday’s disaster zone, geological engineer Prof Naci Gorur of Istanbul Technical University realised the risk. He even predicted a later quake north of Adiyaman and the city of Kahramanmaras.
“I warned the local governments, governors, and the central government. I said: ‘Please take action to make your cities ready for an earthquake.’ As we cannot stop them, we have to diminish the damage created by them.”
One of Turkey’s foremost earthquake engineering specialists, Prof Mustafa Erdik, believes the dramatic loss of life was down to building codes not being followed, and he blames ignorance and ineptitude in the building industry.
“We allow for damage but not this type of damage – with floors being piled on top of each other like pancakes,” he told the BBC. “That should have been prevented and that creates the kind of casualties we have seen.”
Image caption,An international rescue team looks at the concrete floors of a collapsed building in Kahramanmaras
Under Turkish regulations updated in 2018, high-quality concrete has to be reinforced with ribbed, steel bars. Vertical columns and horizontal beams have to be able to absorb the impact of tremors.
“There should be adhesion between the concrete and steel bars, and there should also be adequate transfer reinforcement in the columns,” explained Prof. Erdik.
Had all the regulations been followed, the columns would have survived intact and the damage would have been confined to the beams, he believes. Instead the columns gave way and the floors collapsed on top of each other, causing heavy casualties.
The justice minister has said anyone found to have been negligent or at fault will be brought to justice.
Quake tax mystery
Critics such as opposition CHP party leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu argue that after 20 years in power, President Erdogan’s government has not “prepared the country for the earthquakes.”
One big question is what happened to the large sums collected through the two “earthquake solidarity taxes” created after the 1999 quake. The funds were meant to make buildings resistant to earthquakes.
One of the taxes, paid to this day by mobile phone operators and radio and TV, has brought some 88bn lira (£3.8bn; $4.6bn) into state coffers. It was even raised to 10% two years ago. But the government has never fully explained where the money has been spent.
Urban planners have complained that rules have not been observed in earthquake zones and highlighted a 2018 government amnesty that meant violations of the building code could be swept away with a fine and left some six million buildings unchanged.
The fines brought in billions of Turkish lira in taxes and fees. But when a residential building in Istanbul collapsed in 2019, killing 21 people, the head of the chamber of civil engineers said the amnesty would turn Turkish cities into graveyards.
More than 100,000 applications were made for an amnesty in the 10 cities currently affected, according to Pelin Pinar Giritlioglu of Istanbul University, who says there was a high intensity of illegal construction in the area.
“The amnesty played an important role in the collapse of the buildings in the latest earthquake,” she told the BBC.
Image caption,Cities in 10 provinces with a population of more than 13 million were affected by Monday’s quakes
“We cannot go anywhere by blaming each other and we should seek solutions,” says Prof Erdik, who believes the problem goes beyond politics and lies in a system that allows engineers to go straight into practice after university with little experience.
Prof Gorur calls for the creation of “earthquake-resistant urban settlements” but for that there will have to be a shift in thinking, nowhere more so than in Turkey’s most populous city.
“We have been warning about a possible Istanbul earthquake for 23 years. So the policymakers of Istanbul should come together and make policies to make people, the infrastructure, the buildings and the neighbourhoods resistant to an earthquake.”
Polarised politics
President Erdogan has called for unity and solidarity, denouncing critics of the disaster response as dishonourable.
“I cannot stomach people conducting negative campaigns for political interest,” he told reporters in Hatay, near the earthquake’s epicentre.
Many of the towns and cities in the affected areas are run by his ruling party, the AKP.
But after 20 years in power, first as prime minister and then as an increasingly authoritarian, elected president, he leads a highly polarised country.
“We have come to this point because of his politics,” said Mr Kilicdaroglu.
Campaigning for elections expected in May has not yet begun, but he leads one of six opposition parties poised to announce a unified candidate in a bid to bring down the president.
Mr Erdogan’s hopes of unifying the country ahead of those elections are likely to fall on deaf ears.
He has become increasingly intolerant of criticism, and many of his opponents are in jail or have fled abroad. Whenan attempted coup against the president in 2016 resulted in bloodshed, he reacted by arresting tens of thousands of Turks and dismissing civil servants.
The economy has been in freefall, with a 57% inflation rate leading to a sky-high cost of living.
Among the government’s first actions in response to the earthquake was temporarily blocking Twitter, which was being used in Turkey to help rescuers locate survivors. The government said it was being used to spread disinformation and police detained a political scientist for posting criticism of the emergency response.
Turkish journalist Deniz Yucel, who spent a year in jail in pre-trial detention, wrote from exile in Germany that the aftermath of the 1999 Turkish earthquake helped propel Mr Erdogan to power.
This latest disaster would play a part in the next vote too, he said, but it was not yet clear how.
After 32 years, Somalia’s embassy in the UK reopened in a ceremony featuring ambassador Abdulkadir Ahmed Kheyr, Olympic champion Mo Farah, and Somali-Canadian model Sabrina Dhowre.
The embassy in London is expected to provide consular services to the nearly 500,000-strong diaspora community in the UK who are eligible for Somali citizenship, and other services including travel documentation and marriage certificates.
It will also host cultural and other informative events.
Ambassador Kheyr said that reopening the embassy was a positive step in strengthening UK-Somali relations.
The Somali embassy in London was officially closed in 1991 following the collapse of the central government. However, diplomatic relations have strengthened in recent years.
Britain reopened its embassy in Mogadishu in 2013 after a 22-year absence.
According to Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD), there have now been 20,665 fatalities.
It stated that more than 166,000 people were involved in the rescue and relief efforts and that nearly 93,000 victims had been evacuated from the earthquake zone in southern Turkey.
More than 3,500 deaths have been reported in Syria in the meantime.
At least 870,000 people urgently needed food in the two countries after the quake, which has made up to 5.3 million people homeless inSyria alone, the UN warned.
Football player Christian Atsu’s partner has requested that equipment be sent to the building that has collapsed where he was living since Atsu has been missing since the Monday earthquake in Turkey.
Atsu, a player for the Turkish team Hatayspor, was reportedly pulled “with injuries” from a building.
But a day later, his agent stated that it was unknown where he was.
Claire Rupio, a resident of Newcastle, United Kingdom, told BBC News, “I still pray and believe that he is alive.”
Rupio says conflicting reports about his whereabouts have been “confusing” and “quite shocking”, revealing their children heard on the radio that he will still missing.
She said: “I appeal for the Hatayspor club, the Turkish authorities, and the British government to send out the equipment to get people out of the rubble—especially my partner and the father of my children.”
“They need the equipment to get them out—they can’t get that deep without the equipment.” “And time is running out.”
More than 21,000 people have died in southern Turkey and northern Syria since the earthquake and aftershocks that followed.
Taner Savut, the sporting director of Atsu’s club Hatayspor, and Atsu have not been seen since the quake on Monday.
On Tuesday, Hatayspor’s vice-president told Turkish media that Atsu had been found alive, but on Wednesday, other figures from the club as well as Atsu’s agent Nana Sechere said they had not been able to confirm this.
Rupio said that the agent is now in Turkey and attempting to get to the building in Hatay that Atsu is inside.
Sechere tweeted on Thursday: “The situation remains the same, Christian Atsu is yet to be found. Unless I see Christian, or speak with him, I have no further updates.”
“They know where the building is, and they’re trying their best to rescue everybody,” added Rupio.
“They know there are people still trapped under the rubble, but the problem is that they don’t have the equipment necessary to get them out.
“So he’s still missing, and we don’t know where he is.”
‘Atsu reports have been confusing and shocking’
Rupio last spoke to Atsu on Saturday morning. She described the inaccurate news from the club about Atsu having been rescued as “quite shocking.”
“The club were confirming that he was found and was alive and taken to hospital, and 11 hours later my children had to hear from the radio that they still did not know where he is,” she said.
“I know that his agent is there and that they are trying their best to find him.” He will obviously bring me news that I can trust if he sees or speaks to him. “Everything is quite confusing.”
Atsu, 31, played 107 games for Newcastle and had spells with Chelsea, Everton, and Bournemouth.
The Premier League has announced it will donate £1m to the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) Appeal to deliver humanitarian aid to those in Turkey and Syria in need of it.
Also, as a mark of respect to those who lost their lives, or are affected by these tragic events, Premier League players and match officials will wear black armbands at games this weekend.
The unmanned object, according to spokesman John Kirby, was “the size of a small car” and presented a “reasonable threat” to civil aviation.
Mr. Kirby stated that the object’s origin and purpose were unknown.
It occurs one week after American forces blew up a Chinese balloon over US airspace.
Speaking on Friday at the White House, Mr. Kirby noted that the object that was shot down on that day had a “much, much smaller debris field” than the balloon that was shot down last Saturday off the coast of South Carolina.
He said that the object was flying at 40,000ft (12,000m) over the northern coast of Alaska.
It had already flown across Alaska at a speed of 20 to 40mph (64km/h) and was out over the sea travelling towards the North Pole, when it was shot down.
Commercial airlines can fly as high as 45,000ft.
Helicopters and transport aircraft have been deployed to collect debris from the frozen waters of the Beaufort Sea.
“We do not know who owns it, whether it’s state owned or corporate owned or privately owned,” Mr Kirby said.
The object was first spotted on Thursday night, though officials did not specify a time.
He said two fighter jets had approached the object and assessed there was nobody on board, and this information was available to Mr Biden when he made his decision.
“We’re going to remain vigilant about our airspace,” Mr Kirby asserted. “The president takes his obligations to protect our national security interests as paramount.”
According to ABC News, the object seemed to have no propulsion.
It seemed to be floating, “cylindrical and silver-ish grey,” reports the network’s chief global affairs correspondent, Martha Raddatz, citing an unnamed US official.
Pentagon press secretary Brigadier General Pat Ryder said the object was “not similar in size or shape” to last week’s Chinese balloon.
Image caption,The Pentagon said an F-22, seen here in an archive photograph, shot down the object on Friday afternoon local time
The warplane was scrambled from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage.
Gen Ryder said a significant amount of debris had been recovered so far. It was being loaded on to vessels and taken to “labs for subsequent analysis”, he added.
Officials said they had not yet determined whether the object was involved in surveillance, and Mr Kirby corrected a reporter who referred to it as a balloon.
He did not specify where exactly the object was shot down, but the Federal Aviation Administration said it had closed about 10 sq miles of US airspace airspace above Deadhorse, northern Alaska, before the F-22 fired.
The site is about 130 miles from the border of Canada, whose Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Twitter he had been briefed on the “object that violated American airspace” and “supported the decision to take action”.
No other objects of a threatening nature have been identified above the US at this time, according to the White House.
Mr Kirby said the object did not appear to have the manoeuvrable capability of the Chinese balloon and seemed to be “virtually at the whim of the wind”.
Hours after the US shot down the balloon last Saturday, Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin called his Chinese counterpart via their special crisis line.
But Chinese Defence Minister Wei Fenghe declined to pick up, according to the Pentagon.
Chinese officials on Friday accused the US of “political manipulation and hype”.
In an interview on Thursday, President Biden defended his handling of the Chinese balloon, maintaining that it was not “a major breach.”
Late on Friday, five Chinese companies and one research institute were added to the US government’s trade blacklist. Organisations were placed on the list for their alleged support of Chinese military aerospace programmes, including airships and balloons, the US Commerce Department announced.
Following prolonged tensions between the two countries over COVID, Seoul decided to remove visa requirements for Chinese visitors.
In light of China’s improved COVID-19 situation, South Korea has decided to resume issuing short-term visas to visitors from China.
The government made the decision to resume regular short-term visa application procedures at its consulates in China on Saturday after a Friday anti-virus meeting.
However, officials warned that depending on how the virus evolved, the testing requirements might later be relaxed.
The move marks the end of a long COVID-related restriction that had sparked tensions with Beijing.
Seoul and Beijing at loggerheads
In December, China abruptly ended its stringent “zero-COVID” policy, leading to a wave of infections.
This raised the prospect of millions of Chinese travellers making their way abroad for the first time in three years.
In January, while China battled a surge of COVID infection cases, Seoul stopped issuing most short-term visas.
Travelers rush to take advantage of China reopening
This raised business concerns, as South Korea depends heavily on exports to China.
Seoul defended their actions, saying that the spread of thevirus in China was creating concern over the possible emergence of new variants.
It also accused the Chinese authorities of not being transparent with their COVID data.
South Korea’s Vice Interior Minister Kim Sung-ho, who is in charge of disaster and safety management, said the move to lift restrictions came after the number of infections among Chinese arrivals dropped significantly.
When the curbs were first introduced in January, 20% of Chinese travelers to South Korea had tested positive.
Last week only 1.4% of Chinese travelers tested positive on arrival.
Other restrictions, including testing requirements continue to remain in place.
Travelers from China have to produce a negative test before departure and undergo a PCR test upon arrival in South Korea.
Those who test positive are to stay quarantined for a week.
Daniel Levy, chairman of Tottenham, has acknowledged that supporters want to see more money spent, but he has cautioned that some Premier League clubs now have the “ability to distort the market.”
Levy claimed that the level of spending in the top division is “unsustainable” for the majority of clubs in a statement accompanying Spurs’ most recent financial results.
He also acknowledged that some recent hires did not pan out as expected.
“The landscape of the Premier League has changed significantly,” said Levy.
“It is understandable that some fans call for more spending, much of which is unsustainable for many clubs.
“We are competing in a league in which we have seen increased sovereign wealth ownership and consortia finance; and in a league where the spending power is now vested in the hands of a few who dominate and have the ability to distort the market.”
Manchester City were taken over by the Abu Dhabi United Group in 2008 while the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund (PIF) backed a £305m takeover of Newcastle in October 2021.
Meanwhile, Chelsea was sold for £4.25 billion to a consortium led by American investor Todd Boehly and private equity firm Clearlake Capital in May.
Levy said he welcomes changes to football governance, financial sustainability, and Financial Fair Play (FFP) regulations.
Last month,Tottenham fans protested against club owners ENIC and Levy at the club’s training ground over a lack of investment.
At that point, Spurs were yet to make a signing in the winter transfer window, but they later completed loan deals for Arnaut Danjuma from Villarreal and Pedro Porro from Sporting Lisbon.
According to the club’s latest financial report, Tottenham have invested more than £500 million in the men’s first team squad since April 2019—less than double what Chelsea spent (£288 million) this January alone.
“We walk a fine line between long-term investment and short-termism,” said Levy.
“This is why our recruitment must be first class as mistakes at this level have a financial and sporting impact for future seasons.
“We have felt, and continue to feel, the financial impact of supporting player purchases which have not worked out as planned.”
Tottenham, who are fifth in the Premier League, have only won one major trophy, the 2007-08 League Cup, since Levy became chairman of the club in 2001.
He said: “We share our supporters’ frustrations at so many ‘near misses’ resulting in a lack of trophies.
“Over the last two decades we have been in 14 semi-finals, made it to six finals and only won one of them. It must be our hope that we are soon celebrating a trophy win.”
Tottenham record increase in revenue
Tottenham were recently listed ninth in Deloitte’s Money League study from the 2021-22 season, which ranks the world’s richest clubs by revenue.
In their new financial report, Spurs announced a 22.7% increase in revenue to £444m for the year ending June 2022, up from £361.9m in the previous 12 months.
The club recorded a rise in match receipts from £1.9m to £106.1m in their first full season in the new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
It was also the first complete season that full-capacity crowds were allowed back into football grounds after two seasons of disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, which Tottenham say resulted in the loss of approximately £200m in revenue.
Commercial revenue grew by 20.7% to £31.5m but they received less Uefa prize money following an early exit from the Europa Conference League – having reached the Europa League last 16 in 2020-21.
Tottenham’s finances were also boosted by majority shareholder ENIC Sports Inc. agreeing in May to put an extra £150 million into the club.
On Friday, former Khabarovsk region governor Sergei Furgal received a 22-year prison sentence.
He was found guilty of attempted murder and hiring hit men to kill competitors in the business.
Furgal disputed the allegations.
The former governor was convicted by a jury earlier this month of planning two homicides and one attempted homicide.
Russia’s prosecutor general’s office said: “The court established that Furgal and his accomplice, guided by selfish motives and a desire to increase the income of a commercial organization controlled by him … created an organised group in 2004 to commit murders of competitors.”
One of Furgal’s lawyers, Boris Kozhemyakin, said the verdict was “unlawful” and his team would seek an appeal.
Who is Sergei Furgal?
The 2020 arrest of the popular governor sparked a wave of protests in the Khabarovsk region.
Local media reported at the time that the demonstrations were largely peaceful and led to no arrests. The Agence France Presse (AFP) news agency said that one march in Khabarovsk drew a crowd of tens of thousands of people, with smaller demonstrations being held in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Elban, Solnechny and other cities.
He was accused of committing the crimes in 2004 and 2005, when he was a prominent businessman in far eastern Russia.
Furgal’s supporters claim that the charges were politically motivated.
The former governor won a surprise election victory in 2018 on a ticket for the ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party, securing 70% of the vote. The record win ousted longtime incumbent Vyacheslav Shport, who is a member of President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia Party.
Putin fired Furgal days after the former governor’s arrest, citing “loss of trust.”
The child was seen being carefully taken outside overnight, which the local media hailed as miraculous.
Four days after the disaster, there are fewer survivors to be found, and the chances are dwindling in the bitter cold.
However, search and rescue operations are still ongoing in Turkey and the neighbouring country of Syria, which was also hit by earthquakes.
A thermally blanketed newborn named Yagiz was seen being carried to an ambulance for medical attention.
His mother was brought out on a stretcher. There were no further updates immediately available over the health of both.
Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu – whose teams were reportedly involved in the rescue – tweeted about the rescue, saying it happened in the town of Samandag.
Footage obtained by the Reuters news agency also showed a man being retrieved from the ruins, though it was not known if he had any connection to the other two.
More than 21,000 people have died – most of them in Turkey – after Monday morning’s initial 7.8-magnitude tremor and the hundreds of aftershocks that followed.
There have also been fears of a secondary catastrophe, as many people have been made homeless and are lacking shelter, water, fuel and electricity.
Opposition figures have accused Mr Erdogan of failing to prepare for the earthquake and have questioned how estimated 88bn lira ($4.6bn; £3.8bn) raised from an “earthquake tax” was spent. The levy – first imposed in the wake of a massive quake in 1999 that killed more than 17,000 people – was meant to have been spent on disaster prevention and the development of emergency services.
Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of Turkey’s main opposition party said on Wednesday that Mr Erdogan’s government “has not prepared for an earthquake for 20 years”.
Despite the devastation, stories of remarkable escapes or heroic rescues have been emerging over the past days.
Thousands of people have offered to adopt a baby girl who was born under a collapsed building in north-west Syria.
When she was rescued, baby Aya – meaning miracle in Arabic – was still connected by her umbilical cord to her mother, who died along with other family members.
Authorities in Cameroon stated that the restrictions on border crossing were put in place because of “the high risk of importation” of the unknown illness.
Following “several unexplained deaths” from an unidentified illness that causes hemorrhagic fever, Cameroon has restricted travel along its border with Equatorial Guinea, according to Minister of Public Health Malachie Manaouda on Friday.
He stated in a statement that the restrictions were put in place due to “the high risk of importing this disease and in order to detect and respond to any cases at an early stage.”
With the assistance of specialists from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization (WHO), investigations are currently underway, and epidemiological surveillance has been strengthened.
“At the current stage … there is no reason to be worried,” Malachie said.
Equatorial Guinea said in a statement on Wednesday that it had registered an “unusual epidemiological situation” over the past weeks in its Nsok Nsomo district, Kie-Ntem province, that caused nine deaths in two adjacent communities over a short space of time.
A crisis commission set up by the health ministry reported a tenth death on Thursday.
The symptoms observed were fever, weakness, vomiting blood and diarrhoea. A team was sent to isolate contact cases and take samples that were sent to a regionalWHO lab for testing. A woman and her two children were taken to hospital, where they recovered after receiving mild treatment, the statement added.
A WHO spokesperson said the agency was supporting the testing of samples to identify what has caused the deaths and should get results within the coming days.
Cameroon said approximately 20 deaths had been recorded on Wednesday in villages in Equatorial Guinea’s Kie-Ntem province, which borders Cameroon’s Olamze district.
The symptoms of the “non-identified illness” were nose bleeds, fever, joint pain and other ailments that caused death within a few hours, the head of health for the district, Ngu Fankam Roland, said in a statement.
He told Reuters on Friday that no cases had been detected or suspected in Cameroon so far.
At about 3pm, a man and woman ran in, the man holding in his arms a small bundle, shouting that they needed a paediatrician. Their faces showed panic that had turned to despair. This was the sixth hospital they had run to with their precious bundle – baby Aya, who had just been born in the rubble of a collapsed building to a mother who had died.
A miracle in the rubble
Assuring them that he was a paediatrician, Maarouf gently took the baby from them but what he saw “terrified” him.
“I wasn’t sure she was even alive – she was pale, cold, silent. Her limbs were blue and her body was covered with bruises,” he recalled.
Then a faint pulse was discovered and he and his team sprang into action. They wrapped the baby with warmed blankets and placed her in an incubator, watching her until she warmed up enough that they were able to find a vein to hook her up to calcium and glucose solutions.
Baby Aya is not a fan of the stethoscope, but it helps the doctors determine that she is doing just fine [Ali Haj Suleiman/Al Jazeera]
The man who had brought her in – her aunt’s husband – and the woman who accompanied him – a neighbour – were relieved that Aya was going to be saved, but the cruel reality of that day meant they could not stay any longer by her side as they had to go find their own families, and possibly count and bury their dead.
Four days after baby Aya was first brought in and named by the hospital staff, Maarouf tells Al Jazeera that she is doing much better and that the hospital team has pulled together to make sure she is well taken care of. Although she still spends the day in an incubator, baby Aya is being breastfed by a volunteer who comes in several times a day, which provides her with the human, skin-to-skin contact babies need to thrive, in addition to the antibodies and nutrients that can only be found in human breast-milk.
And she has thrived, Maarouf says proudly, adding that she is putting on weight, showing all the positive indicators and all-around doing much better than he had expected. While he, as a father of seven, often finds himself too deeply moved by the baby’s plight to spend too much time at her side, many of the nursing staff visit her, sitting by her incubator and watching her sleep or coo and wave her arms.
Dr Maarouf is proud of how much Aya has thrived but, as a father of seven, he is deeply saddened by her plight [Ali Haj Suleiman/Al Jazeera]
The circumstances of baby Aya’s mother going into labour remain undetermined, but Maarouf says it is very possible for a woman to go into labour due to shock and for the labour to continue to its end regardless. That the rescuers on Monday heard baby Aya’s cries in the rubble and were able to remove her and get her to help within hours was “first and foremost due to God’s mercy”, Maarouf says.
Surprisingly, he adds, it was possible that the extreme cold complicating rescue efforts had played a role in keeping baby Aya alive until she was found. Because of the cold, she went into hypothermia, which is actually a therapy used in neonatal hospitals to save babies whose brains lack oxygen at birth. This would have preserved her brain function until the hospital staff were able to warm her up and start her care.
‘We’ll stay open, no matter what’
When Maarouf reassured baby Aya’s relatives that they would take care of the baby and that they should go check on the rest of their families, he was speaking with the full knowledge of the horror that had struck Afrin that day. And what war-ravaged Syria has been going through for the past 12 years, as he himself was displaced from Maaret al-Naaman to Afrin in 2019.
Dr Maarouf and his family were displaced from Maaret al-Naaman to Afrin in 2019 [Ali Haj Suleiman/Al Jazeera]
He had spent hours in the car with his wife and children on the day of the earthquakes until their house was deemed safe to go back into, and that day they had 40 people sheltering with them because they had nowhere else to go. It was that thought that pushed him to go back to work that day, that someone might need help.
“Us paediatricians, we’re not the heroes of these disasters, not by a long shot,” he told Al Jazeera. “The true heroes are the surgeons, the civil defence people who are literally saving lives every minute under the most horrible circumstances.
“This is not the first disaster to strike this region, God knows, we’ve had years of bombardment and war. Throughout that time, we are the second line of defence, we usually take care of children who need regular care, who have pre-existing conditions, who still need our care even as walls come falling down. That’s why I said that we would not close the hospital, we would stay open, no matter what.”
Even that was difficult in the first days after the quakes, which have killed more than 21,500 people to date. “The pharmacies closed, the medical depots closed, everything stopped. We were spinning in circles because we don’t have many medicines on hand in the hospital dispensary,” Maarouf said.
The team ran all the necessary checks and were amazed at how well Aya had come through her ordeal [Ali Haj Suleiman/Al Jazeera]
“One of the days, we needed a bit of formula for baby Aya because the volunteer hadn’t come in yet to nurse her. I was at my wit’s end until I remembered that I had a couple of small samples of formula somewhere in my office, so that situation was saved. Now, things are a little better, maybe at 50 percent.
“But that’s still not good enough. Look at how long we’ve been waiting for any kind of assistance! The border crossings are closed they said, those organisations and the UN. So they all can’t find a helicopter to fly aid into here?”
The northwestern part of Syria is held by forces opposed to President Bashar al-Assad in the country’s 12-year war. It is largely isolated, with only one approved land border crossing used to bring assistance via Turkey to its more than four million residents, most of whom are internally displaced.
No aid crossed the Bab al-Hawa crossing for three days after the earthquake due to extensive road damage in Turkey, but convoys resumed coming through on Thursday. The needs, however, remain enormous, with the World Food Programme warning on Friday it was running out of stock in northwest Syria and appealing for more corridors to be opened.
Many of the nursing staff visit Aya, sitting by her incubator to watch her sleep or coo and wave her arms [Ali Haj Suleiman/Al Jazeera]
In spite of the anger and sadness at the situation, or perhaps because of an inner resilience that has been built up over years of successive disaster for the region, he speaks in a remarkably calm voice and with a deep empathy for what everyone around him is going through.
Her aunt’s husband has come to visit baby Aya since, but it does not seem like the family is in any condition to come to take her in just yet, Maarouf said. And that is just fine with him, all the folks at Jehan Hospital are happy tending to baby Aya for as long as it takes.
DISCLAIMER: Independentghana.com will not be liable for any inaccuracies contained in this article. The views expressed in the article are solely those of the author’s, and do not reflect those of The Independent Ghana
The announcement follows a Belarusian court’s eight-year prison sentence for a journalist withPolish ancestry.
The Polish interior minister announced that Poland will close a crucial border crossing with Belarus until further notice as relations between Warsaw and Minsk reach new lows.
Relations between Poland and Belarus, which were already tense, became even more tense on Wednesday when a journalist with Polish ancestry was given an eight-year prison sentence by a Belarusian court in a case that Warsaw claims was politically motivated.
“Due to the important interest of state security, I decided to suspend until further notice from 1200 [11:00 GMT] on Feb. 10 this year traffic at the Polish-Belarusian border crossing in Bobrowniki,” Mariusz Kaminski wrote on Twitter.
Bobrowniki, more than 200km (125 miles) northeast of Warsaw, is one of the main crossing points between Poland and Belarus.
Anton Bychkovsky, a spokesman for the Belarus state border service, said the move was unwarranted and could cause the remaining crossings to become overloaded, Russia’s state TASS news agency reported.
Bychkovsky told the Belarus STV channel only two of the six main border posts would be operational, which he said would hurt truckers and citizens, according to TASS.
“The Belarusian side sees no objective reasons for taking such a decision given that there is no threat from the territory of Belarus,” TASS quoted him as saying.
Kaminski also said that as a result of the jailing of journalist Andrzej Poczobut, he would apply for further people connected with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko to be added to sanctions lists.
A Belarusian court on Monday sentenced Poczobut for “instigating hatred against religious and national groups, and rehabilitating Nazism”, the Polish state-run news agency PAP reported.
Poland has become a key refuge for opponents of Lukashenko as well as one of Ukraine’s staunchest allies since Belarusian ally Russia invaded the country in February last year.
Russia used Belarus as a staging post for its ultimately abortive advance on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.
In 2021, Poland and the European Union said Belarus had engineered a refugee crisis on its borders, an accusation Minsk denies. More recently, Poland has condemned the vandalism of Polish graves in Belarus.
Thousands of people of Polish origin live in Belarus as the west of the country was Polish territory until borders were redrawn after World War II.
In the Turkish city of Hatay,Christian Atsu and an official of his club, Hatayspor, are still thought to be trapped inside the wreckage of the apartment building where they once resided.
According to reports in Turkish media, thermal cameras used at the Hatay Renaissance facility have verified that many people who were buried alive by the rubble after the earthquake on February 6 are still alive.
The facility, which has about 250 apartments, was occupied at the time of the incident, according to the media outlet Ajansspor.
“There are many living people, confirmed by thermal cameras. The building, where national handball player Cemal Kütahya and his family, Hatayspor manager Taner Savut, and football player Christian Atsu are located, is very crowded with a capacity of 1000 people,” Ajansspor tweeted with a video of experts at the site.
Christian Atsu and Hatayspor’s Sporting Director, Taner Savut are among the occupants of the facility believed to still be under the rubble.
Reports emerged that Atsu had been rescued alive and sent to the hospital after 26 hours (February 7) but that account was later dismissed as a case of mistaken identity.
The death toll continues to mount even as technical, logistical, and relief support from across the world pours in to help the country cope with the magnitude of death and destruction.
The engines on the most powerful rocket ever built, which is intended to eventually transport astronauts to the Moon and Mars, have successfully completed a test-firing by SpaceX.
At SpaceX’s Texas base, the 33 Raptor engines on the Starship’s first-stage booster underwent a static fire test on Thursday that appeared to break the previous record for the most thrust ever generated by a single space rocket.
Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, claimed that one engine was shut off just before the test began, and another engine shut itself off.
“So 31 engines fired overall,” Musk said in a tweet. “But still enough engines to reach orbit!”
SpaceX said the test lasted its “full duration”.
Giant sheets of orange flames erupted from the base of the rocket and clouds of smoke billowed into the air during the test-firing, which lasted several seconds.
NASA is counting on Starship to ferry astronauts to the surface of the Moon in a few years, linking up with its Orion capsule in lunar orbit. Further down the road, Musk wants to use the mammoth Starships to send people to Mars.
The 69-metre (230 ft) Super Heavy booster was anchored to the ground during the test-firing on Thursday to prevent it from lifting off.
Gwynne Shotwell, the president and chief operating officer of SpaceX, said at a conference in Washington, DC, on Wednesday that if the test was successful, the first orbital launch may take place within the next month or so. That launch, a test mission, would involve lifting off from Texas and landing off the coast of Hawaii.
“It’s really the final ground test that we can do before we light ’em up and go,” Shotwell said.
NASA has picked the Starship capsule to ferry its astronauts to the Moon as part of the Artemis 3 mission, set for 2025 at the earliest.
When mated to its upper-stage Starship spacecraft, the entire vehicle will stand taller than the Statue of Liberty at 120 metres (394 ft) high, forming the centrepiece of Musk’s ambitions to eventually colonise Mars. But plans call for it to first play a leading role in NASA’s renewed human exploration of the Moon.
Spaceflight enthusiasts lauded the engine test, describing it as “a big win” for SpaceX.
STATIC FIRE! Booster 7 fires up in a milestone test. We'll need SpaceX/Elon to confirm how many engines! But that looked super controlled, and everything appears intact (a big win!)https://t.co/kMGfaJbudDpic.twitter.com/kFb0m5DaJG
SpaceX foresees eventually putting a Starship into orbit and then refuelling it with another Starship so it can continue a journey to Mars or beyond.
Other super heavy rockets under development include Blue Origin’s New Glenn, China’s Long March 9 and Russia’s Yenisei.
Blue Origin, the private space company founded by US tech billionaire Jeff Bezos, was awarded its first interplanetary NASA contract on Thursday to launch a mission next year to study the magnetic field around Mars, NASA said.
Plans call for Blue Origin’s recently developed New Glenn heavy-lift rocket to blast off with NASA’s dual-spacecraft ESCAPADE mission in late 2024 from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, the agency said.
New Glenn, with a reusable first stage designed to be flown on at least 25 missions, is named for pioneering NASA astronaut John Glenn, who became the first American to orbit Earth in 1962.
Blue Origin has flown previous NASA missions with its smaller, suborbital New Shepard rocket, which can carry research payloads on short, microgravity trips to the edge of space and back.
Officials have reported that a new wave of attacks is targeting the city’s energy infrastructure in thesoutheast as well as in Kharkiv.
Russian missile attacks have reportedly targeted Zaporizhzhia in the southeast and Kharkiv, the second-largest city in Ukraine, officials said.
Friday morning saw at least 17 Russian missile strikes on Zaporizhzhia in the space of an hour, according to the city’s acting mayor, Anatolii Kurtiev, who also noted that the missiles were aimed at energy infrastructure.
Another nighttime attack campaign by Russian forces resulted in the loss of electricity in some areas of Kharkiv.
“The occupiers hit critical infrastructure. There were about 10 explosions,” Kharkiv Governor Oleh Synehubov said on Telegram. “In some regions, there are power cuts. Emergency services are on site.”
There were no immediate words on casualties in either Zaporizhzhia or Kharkiv.
Russian forces have been advancing recently for the first time in half a year, in hard-fought battles that both sides describe as some of the bloodiest of the war.
To avoid an economic collapse, Pakistan says it has reached an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on the terms for releasing about $1.1 billion in financial aid.
Ishaq Dar, the finance minister, claimed that “routine procedures” were to blame for the payment delay as an IMF team left cash-strapped Pakistan on Friday after 10 days of negotiations with the government.
Pakistan and the IMF had agreed to a bailout package worth $6 billion in 2019, and another $1 billion was added to the programme the following year. Since December, the $1.1 billion first payment has been delayed.
“The prime minister has said we are committed … We will implement whatever has been agreed upon between our teams,” Dar told reporters.
“We will try to make sure Pakistan completes its second IMF programme in its history,” he added.
In a statement, Pakistan IMF Mission Chief Nathan Porter said “considerable progress” was made in their talks with the Pakistani government, adding that the negotiations will continue.
Dar said the government will implement fiscal measures demanded by the IMF, including raising 170 billion Pakistani rupees ($627m) through new taxes.
Also, commitments to increase fuel taxes will be completed, with diesel levies to be doubled to 5 rupees a litre on March 1 and again on April 1 this year.
Pakistan is battling an economic meltdown, compounded by a balance of payment crisis, record inflation and a plummeting rupee that has lost value more than 10 percent of its value in the last two weeks.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif last week said the economic situation was “unimaginable”.
Catastrophic floods last year worsened the crisis, with food security concerns due to the floods, continuing political chaos and worsening security situation adding to it.
According to the central bank’s data on Thursday, the country’s foreign exchange reserves fell to $2.9bn during the week ending February 3.
Experts fear the reserves would last less than 20 days and any delay in an IMF payout could have serious consequences.
Asad Sayeed, a Karachi-based economist with the research firm Collective for Social Science Research, told Al Jazeera that while both the IMF and the government appear “moderately positive” over their talks, the next week is going to be critical for Pakistan.
“There are a lot of decisions to be made and they need to be done as soon as possible, which makes the next week so important. If the government does what the IMF wants, perhaps then we can see the completion of their agreement. But if it does not, it will be a red signal for the country.”
Economist Haris Gazdar pointed towards a “technical-political dichotomy” regarding the IMF deal.
“The technical agreement would already signal an IMF nod and the advantage it confers upon the government. The IMF obviously needs ‘political’ commitment before it confers that advantage,” he told Al Jazeera.
“The things they have asked us includes revenue collection, phasing out untargetted subsidies, non-interference with exchange rate etc. Since the relationship between these variables and actual economic outcomes is never precise, there is room for genuine disagreement on targets that must be met,” he said.
“So, negotiation is part of the deal. But how much space Pakistan gets in the end is partly political.”
In order to give Japanese troops more access to Philippine territory, the leaders of Japan and the Philippines have agreed to strengthen their defence ties.
The defence agreement was signed on Thursday by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. It will enable Japanese troops to participate in training exercises to address natural disasters and humanitarian needs in the Philippines.
The agreement could lead to similar agreements between Japan and other countries in Southeast Asia, where competition for geopolitical influence has increased amid a more assertive Chinese presence in the region. It is seen as a step towards greater military cooperation between Tokyo and Manila.
Kishida said the countries will continue talks to further strengthen and streamline their militaries’ joint exercises and other operations, while seeking also to expand the transfer of Japanese defence equipment and technology to the Philippines as well as strengthening cooperation trilaterally with the United States.
“After our meeting, I can confidently say that our strategic partnership is stronger than ever as we navigate together the rough waters buffeting our region,” Marcos said at a joint news conference with Kishida.
Taiwan, which lies between Japan and the Philippines, has become a focal point of intensifying Chinese military activity that Tokyo and Washington worry could escalate into war as Beijing has promised to take back Taiwan, which it views merely as a rogue province and not a sovereign state.
Marcos’s visit to Japan come shortly after he and US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin reached an agreement on allowing the US more access to Philippine military bases to keep China’s territorial ambitions in check.
The Philippine and Japanese leaders “resolved” to increase the defence capabilities of their own countries and strengthen overall security cooperation with reciprocal port calls and aircraft visits and the transfer of more defence equipment and technology, according to a joint statement released late on Thursday.
It said Japan will transfer air surveillance radar systems to the Philippines and provide related personnel training.
The leaders “expressed serious concerns about the situation in the East and China Seas and strongly opposed the actions including force or coercion that may increase tensions,” the statement said.
Kishida and Marcos also agreed to strengthen economic and cybersecurity, and confirmed Japan’s continuing assistance to the Philippine coastguard in reinforcing its capabilities, including the improvement of port facilities at Subic Bay, a former US naval base.
“President Marcos’s visit here gives us impetus for Japan and the Philippines to further elevate our cooperation in recent years to even higher levels as we contribute to the peace and stability of the region and the international community,” Kishida said at the news conference.
The countries also agreed on loan arrangements and extensions for Philippine infrastructure projects, including $3bn to finance major commuter rail projects.
The agreement with Manila comes after Kishida’s government in December adopted key security and defence upgrades, including a counterstrike capability that breaks from Japan’s post-World War II principle of self-defence only, while also doubling defence spending within five years.
Japan is the Philippines’ biggest source of bilateral development assistance, according to Manila, and its second-largest trading partner. Japan is also the only country to have a bilateral free trade agreement with the Philippines.
Marcos met with Japan’s Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako ahead of his talks with Kishida on Thursday and invited the imperial couple to visit the Philippines. He also plans to join talks with trade and business officials before returning to the Philippines on Sunday.
The Franco-German meeting with the Ukrainian leader in Paris, according to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, did not promote “unity.”
As a result of not being invited to a dinner in Paris with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has criticised France and Germany, causing a rift between the European Union’s allies.
Zelenskyy began a surprise trip to Western Europe on Wednesday with a stop in the United Kingdom. He then travelled to France, where, ahead of a Thursday EU summit, he had a late dinner with Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
But unlike the previous year, when Macron and Scholz collaborated closely on Ukraine with the then-Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, Meloni was left out in the cold.
Speaking to reporters as she arrived at the Brussels summit on Thursday, Meloni, who took office last October, said she thought the snub was “inappropriate”.
“I think our strength in this fight is unity,” she added.
She later met Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the EU meeting.
Asked about her comments, Macron said he thought Wednesday’s dinner had been fitting.
“As you know, Germany and France have had a special role on the Ukraine question for eight years,” he told reporters, referring to joint mediation by the two countries that tried, and failed, to prevent conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
However, things were different when Draghi, a former president of the European Central Bank, was prime minister. Draghi travelled with Macron and Scholz to Kyiv by train last June and played a leading role with them in shaping EU opposition to Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.
Meloni has pledged to maintain the same pro-Ukraine stance, despite the misgivings of some of her coalition allies, telling reporters on Thursday that providing help to Kyiv was the best way to bring about peace.
Underscoring her willingness to support Kyiv, Italy and France finalised technical talks last week for the joint delivery of a SAMP/T-MAMBA air defence system to Ukraine early this year.
However, Meloni’s brand of nationalist politics has put her at odds with both Macron and Scholz on an array of other issues and the close ties that Draghi forged with Paris and Berlin seem a distant memory.
Paris last November accused Meloni’s new government of breaking a bond of trust and breaching international laws by refusing to take in refugees and migrants saved by a charity rescue ship. The boat eventually docked in France instead.
Earlier this week, French and German ministers flew to Washington together to discuss contested US subsidies with their US counterparts, excluding Italy, which is the second-largest manufacturer in the European Union after Germany.
The executive order establishing a transitional team for the upcoming general elections in Nigeria has been signed by President Muhammadu Buhari.
“The new executive order puts in place a legal framework for the seamless transition of power from one presidential administration to another,” he said.
I have signed Executive Order No. 14 of 2023 on the Facilitation and Management of Presidential Transitions. The new Executive Order puts in place a legal framework for the seamless transition of power from one Presidential Administration to another.
