Month: March 2018

Britain and Russia have been waging a fast and furious information war since former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter were found poisoned March 4 in the provincial English town of Salisbury.  Not a day has gone by without at least one fierce exchange between British and Russian officials — and both governments have turned to social media, from Twitter to Facebook, to make accusations and counter-claims in their efforts to convince a global audience of guilt or innocence.  And the barbs flying have been getting more personal. The British narrative has been more consistent, demanding an explanation from …

READ MORE

Turkey has declared complete control of the northern Syrian area of Afrin after a two-month-long offensive to oust a Kurdish militia. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced Sunday that the next target is the nearby town of Tal Rifaat. Erdogan has vowed to remove Kurds from power in all areas of Syria and Iraq where they took control after defeating Islamic State militants. As VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports. …

READ MORE

With the fire alarms silent and staff reportedly nowhere to be seen, a fire at a shopping mall packed with children and their parents on the first weekend of the school recess killed 64 people in eastern Russia. The fire at the Winter Cherry mall in Kemerovo, a city in Siberia, about 3,000 kilometers (1,900 miles) east of Moscow, was extinguished by Monday morning after burning through the night. Firefighters were still recovering bodies as parts of the buildings were still smoldering. Some of the dead were found inside a cinema. Sixty-four deaths were confirmed after the firefighters finished combing …

READ MORE

A British journalist expelled from the country last month did not have valid accreditation and was filming without a permit, Egyptian authorities said Sunday. The State Information Service said in a statement that The Times of London correspondent Bel Trew, expelled after being threatened with military trial, also covered Egypt unfairly and published false information. The move comes as part of a heavy crackdown on media ahead of this week’s presidential election, which general-turned-President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi is set to win after all serious competitors were arrested or intimidated into dropping out. Trew, who had been in Egypt for seven years, …

READ MORE

Catalonia’s ousted president Carles Puigdemont was arrested in Germany Sunday while crossing the border from Denmark, German police said. Puigdemont’s lawyer, Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas, confirmed the arrest on Twitter, adding that Puigdemont was traveling to Belgium, where he initially fled after an arrest warrant was issued against him for his role in an independence referendum in October. A news report (on AFP) says Puigdemont will appear before a judge in Germany on Monday as part of a process of determining if he is to be returned to Spain. Puidgmont’s detention sparked some demonstrations in Spain, according to the Associated Press. Puigdemont …

READ MORE

Survivors and families of victims of Friday’s terror attack in France attended a special mass to honor the four killed and three wounded, including an officer who swapped himself with a hostage in a supermarket in the southwestern town of Trebes. The Bishop of Carcassonne and Narbonne Alain Planet celebrated mass, during which he praised the “extraordinary devotion” of Lieutenant-Colonel Arnaud Beltrame. “I am here to share in people’s mourning, but also to warm myself to their profound solidarity. This event was also an opportunity to see an extraordinary act, extraordinary devotion by [Lieutenant] Colonel Arnaud Beltrame,” he said. “The …

READ MORE

Pope Francis marked Palm Sunday in Saint Peter’s Square urging young people not to let themselves be manipulated. A large crowd turned out at the Vatican to listen to the pope’s words and receive his blessing on the first of Holy Week services leading up to Easter. Pope Francis and cardinals dressed in red robes marked Palm Sunday with a long and solemn ceremony in Saint Peter’s Square attended by a large crowd, which included many young people who turned out to celebrate the Catholic Church’s World Day of Youth. Carrying a woven palm branch, Pope Francis first led a …

READ MORE

In Russia’s far north, the city of Vorkuta is slowly being reclaimed by the Arctic tundra. The front lines of this battle between the urban and natural worlds are in the suburbs, where abandoned apartment blocks emerge from the towering snowdrifts. Huge icicles claw over the edges of buildings and emerge through shattered windows, seemingly pulling these brutalist relics deeper into their Arctic grave. Vorkuta’s population began to plummet in the 1990s as one by one the local coal mines closed, leaving a handful operational today. The suburb of Sovetsky once housed thousands of miners and their families, the pioneers …

READ MORE

In Russia’s far north, the city of Vorkuta is slowly being reclaimed by the Arctic tundra. Its population has plummeted as the local coal mines have closed, and the very future of the city is in doubt. As Henry Ridgwell reports for VOA, Vorkuta’s fate reflects a wider population crisis across Russia’s far north as old Soviet industries have crumbled. …

READ MORE

About 1,000 people have protested again in Volokolamsk, some 100 kilometers west of Moscow, demanding the closure of a landfill that has been leaking toxic gas that harmed dozens of children this week. The protesters gathered outside the local administration headquarters, many of them wearing pink ribbons as homage to a local schoolgirl who shamed Moscow region Governor Andrei Vorobyov with a defiant gesture during a previous protest. Saturday’s protest came despite the fact that Vorobyov the previous day fired the district chief, after dozens of local children were hospitalized Wednesday due to apparently breathing gas that leaked from the …

READ MORE

Britain’s information regulator said Saturday that it was assessing evidence gathered from a raid on the office of data mining firm Cambridge Analytica, part of an investigation into alleged misuse of personal information by political campaigns and social media companies like Facebook. More than a dozen investigators from the Information Commissioner’s Office entered the company’s central London office late Friday, shortly after a High Court judge granted a warrant. The investigators were seen leaving the premises early Saturday after spending about seven hours searching the office. The regulator said it would “consider the evidence before deciding the next steps and …

READ MORE