Month: December 2021

Paris’ Notre-Dame Rector Offers Hope to Virus-Weary Worshippers

Worshippers in face masks filed into Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois Church across from the Louvre Museum on Friday for Christmas Eve Mass and were greeted by the rector of the closed Notre-Dame Cathedral.  It was the second year that holiday services were held under the shadow of the coronavirus.  Everyone was masked, and members of the congregation sprayed people’s hands with disinfectant as they entered. Children in the choir sang while masked and spaced out across the podium. They had to produce negative coronavirus tests to participate. “We have very strict rules in place,” said Monsignor Patrick Chauvet, rector of Notre-Dame, which has …

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More Than a Dozen Dead in Greece Migrant Boat Accidents

At least three people died when a migrant boat sank in the Aegean Sea on Friday, just hours after similar sinking claimed 11 lives, Greece’s coast guard said. The latest tragedy, the third since Wednesday, came amid high smuggler activity not seen in Greek waters in months. The coast guard said it found three bodies and rescued 57 people from a boat that overturned and sank near the island of Paros. Hours earlier, 11 bodies were recovered from a boat that ran aground on an islet north of the Greek island of Antikythera on Thursday evening. Ninety people stranded on …

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Ukraine Lawmaker Says Prosecutor Seeks Arrest of Former President Poroshenko

The Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office has asked a court to arrest former President Petro Poroshenko on suspicion of high treason and financing pro-Russian separatists, a lawmaker from Poroshenko’s faction in parliament said Friday. “On Christmas Eve, the prosecutor general office confirmed the information … that the prosecutor general had approved a motion to arrest Poroshenko with the possibility of bail set at 1 billion hryvnia [$37 million],” Iryna Gerashchenko said on Facebook. The prosecutor general’s office declined to confirm Gerashchenko’s claim. On Monday, the state investigative bureau said Poroshenko, who is visiting Poland, was suspected of “facilitating the activities” of …

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Pope Celebrates Christmas Eve Mass, Urges Focus on Poor

Pope Francis celebrated Christmas Eve Mass before an estimated 2,000 people in St. Peter’s Basilica on Friday, going ahead with the service despite the resurgence in COVID-19 cases that has prompted a new vaccine mandate for Vatican employees.  A maskless Francis processed down the central aisle as the Sistine Chapel choir sang “Noel,” kicking off the Vatican’s Christmas holiday that commemorates the birth of Jesus in a manger in Bethlehem. He remained maskless throughout the service.  In his homily, Francis urged the faithful to focus on the “littleness” of Jesus, and remember that he came into the world poor, without …

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Russia Says Molotov Cocktail Thrown at Consulate in Ukraine, Protests to Ukraine Authorities

The Russian foreign ministry said Friday that someone had thrown a Molotov cocktail at the Russian consulate in Ukraine’s Lviv and that it had formally protested over the attack, which it called “an act of terrorism.” Russia’s foreign ministry summoned a Ukrainian official and demanded apologies from Ukrainian authorities. Ukrainian police in Lviv said they had launched an investigation into the incident, which they referred to as “hooliganism.” …

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Satellite Images Show Russia Still Building Up Forces Near Ukraine

New satellite images captured by a private U.S. company show that Russia has continued to build up its forces in annexed Crimea and near Ukraine in recent weeks while pressing the United States for talks over security guarantees it is seeking. Reuters could not independently verify the latest images from U.S.-based Maxar Technologies. The Kremlin reiterated on Friday that it reserves the right to move its own forces on Russian territory as it sees fit and that Western countries were carrying out provocative military maneuvers near its borders. U.S., European and Ukrainian leaders have accused Russia of building up troops …

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AP Exclusive: Polish Opposition Senator Hacked With Spyware 

Polish Senator Krzysztof Brejza’s mobile phone was hacked with sophisticated spyware nearly three dozen times in 2019 when he was running the opposition’s campaign against the right-wing populist government in parliamentary elections, an internet watchdog found. Text messages stolen from Brejza’s phone — then doctored in a smear campaign — were aired by state-controlled TV in the heat of that race, which the ruling party narrowly won. With the hacking revelation, Brejza now questions whether the election was fair.  It’s the third finding by the University of Toronto’s nonprofit Citizen Lab that a Polish opposition figure was hacked with Pegasus …

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White House Vows Diplomacy as Russia’s Putin Ratchets Up Rhetoric 

The White House said Thursday that Washington is keeping a keen eye on Moscow and remains committed to diplomacy during upcoming high-level talks. This comes amid increasingly heated rhetoric from Russia’s leader, who on Thursday accused U.S. and NATO allies of undermining his country as he continues to mass troops near Russia’s border with Ukraine. “You expanded NATO to the east,” President Vladimir Putin said Thursday, during his customary marathon end-of-year press conference, where he also accused Western intelligence services of trying to break up the Russian federation by using terrorist groups. “Of course, we asked you not to do …

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Minsk Labels RFE/RL’s Belarus Service as ‘Extremist’

Belarus’s Interior Ministry has added RFE/RL’s Belarus Service, known locally as Radio Svaboda, to its registry of extremist organizations, in a continued clampdown on independent media and civil society sparked by an eruption of protests against authoritarian ruler Alexander Lukashenko’s claim he won a presidential election last year that the opposition says was rigged. According to the statement issued by the ministry on December 23, “a group of citizens associated via Radio Svaboda’s internet resources were determined to be an extremist group.” The move means that Belarusians who subscribe to Radio Svaboda online could face up to six years in …

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Jailed Belarusian Journalist Kuznechyk Faces Criminal Charges

A freelance journalist, who has worked for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Belarus Service, remains in jail on unspecified charges, despite serving two 10-day sentences on controversial hooliganism charges, his relatives said Thursday. Andrey Kuznechyk’s family told RFE/RL that they were officially informed that the journalist was being transferred from the notorious Akrestsina detention center, where many inmates have said they were tortured, to another facility in Minsk.  The family was also told that a criminal case on unspecified charges had been launched against Kuznechyk. Kuznechyk has been held by authorities since late November. After going for a bike ride on …

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