World News Roundup

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2015

14INTERNATIONAL

Conflict

Europe

Ex-min jailed

Top diplomatswelcome calmBERLIN, Nov 7, (Agencies): Topdiplomats hailed progress in haltingthe bloodshed in eastern Ukrainebut called after talks in BerlinFriday for more progress on thepolitical front.

German Foreign MinisterFrank-Walter Steinmeier, whohosted the meeting with his coun-terparts from Ukraine, Russia andFrance, told reporters the two hoursof discussions had focused on “howto further shore up the ceasefire”agreed in September between Kievand pro-Russian forces.

“No onedenied the diffi-culties and theobstacles to apolitical solu-tion,” he said.

“My impres-sion here wasthat the partici-pants are work-ing to overcomethese obstacles.”

Steinmeier said a key stickingpoint remained the withdrawal ofheavy weapons, including tanks,artillery and mortars — a goal hesaid he hoped be reached by earlyDecember.

TargetOn the issue of mines, which

have claimed scores of victims inthe fighting zone, Steinmeier citedthe end of November as a target foran accord on their removal.

The September 1 truce deal wasunexpectedly signed after a seriesof broken ceasefires left worldleaders scrambling for a way out ofa conflict that has killed more than8,000 people and even further erod-ed the West’s relations with theKremlin.

The chief monitor for theOrganization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE),Ertugrul Apakan, said this weekthat the ceasefire was “largely hold-ing” but that the situation remains“volatile”.

A broader peace deal signed inFebruary in Minsk foresees thewithdrawal of heavy weapons fromthe battlefield and calls for a vote tobe held in the separatist regionsunder international auspices.

Those elections have now beenpushed back to early 2016.

Sergei Lavrov of Russia admit-ted Friday that “the implementationof Minsk will be delayed until nextyear” but told Russian reportersthat he “truly hopes that a (military)escalation can be halted”.

OustedMeanwhile, a Kiev court ordered

the two-month detention Friday of ajustice minister who served underthe ousted Moscow-backed presi-dent Viktor Yanukovych andallegedly stole about $300,000 fromEurope’s second-poorest state.

Olena Lukash has alwaysstressed her innocence and was oneof the few Yanukovych cronies whorefused to flee for safety to Russiafollowing months of pro-EUprotests that eventually toppled thepresident last year.

Lukash becomes the first seniorfigure who served underYanukovych to be tried in the war-scarred former Soviet state.

But she could be released withina matter of days should she posebail set at five million hryvnias($220,000/205,000 euros).

Ukraine has also issued arrestwarrants for Yanukovych and hisclosest allies for their allegedinvolvement in three days of blood-shed that ultimately forced thecountry’s leadership to flee thecountry with Russia’s help.

Moscow refuses to extradite anyof them back to Kiev and has dis-missed the entire pro-EU revolutionas an illegal coup.

Lukash is also due to testify as awitness to the February 2014 battlebetween government snipers andmostly unarmed civilians who hadoccupied central Kiev for threemonths.

In another development, sepa-ratist rebels in eastern Ukraine onFriday accused government forcesof shelling residential areas undertheir control with heavy artillery,while Ukrainian forces said therebels were violating the cease-fire.

The rebel mouthpiece DonetskNews Agency said Ukrainian forcesused Grad multiple rocket launch-ers Thursday night and Fridaymorning north of Donetsk. Underthe Sept 1 cease-fire, which haslargely held, heavy weaponry wassupposed to have been withdrawnweeks ago.

The uptick in fighting came asthe foreign ministers of Russia,Ukraine, France and Germany metin Berlin to discuss progress inimplementing the peace dealreached in Minsk in February forthe conflict, which has claimedmore than 8,000 lives since April2014.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the minis-ters agreed to press forward withthe effort to ensure that heavyweapons are withdrawn.

Russian soldiers wearing Red Army World War II uniforms take part in the military parade on the Red Square in Moscow on Nov 7. Russia marked today the 74th anniversary of the 1941 historicalparade, when the Red Army soldiers marched to the front line from the Red Square, as Nazi German troops were just a few kilometers from Moscow. (AFP)

Former US intelligence contractorand whistle blower Edward Snowdenposes within an interview withSwedish daily newspaper Dagens

Nyheter, in Moscow. (AFP)

Goncz Ashdown

Thousands mourn Goncz:Thousands of mourners have attended thefuneral of former Hungarian presidentArpad Goncz, who requested to beburied with a simple ceremony bereft ofthe honors befitting his office.

Goncz, Hungary’s first democraticallyelected president after the communist era,died Oct 6 aged 93. He was buried Friday,according to his wishes, at the Obudaicemetery in Budapest, near the graves ofseveral other veterans of Hungary’s 1956anti-Soviet uprising.

Former lawmaker Imre Mecs, who likeGoncz spent many years in prision after1956, said in his eulogy that Goncz“always knew what to do and always wentin the right direction.”

Goncz, who was elected to two termsbetween 1990 and 2000, was also a much-loved writer and translator. (AP)

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‘Perfect storm is gathering’: Twodecades after a peace deal was reached toend conflict in Bosnia, “a perfect storm isgathering” in the small Balkan nation, itsformer top international envoy PaddyAshdown warned Friday.

Speaking in Sarajevo ahead of the 20thanniversary of the Dayton agreement,which ended nearly four years of inter-ethnic war, Ashdown called on the inter-national community to “wake up andsmell the danger”.

He said that Bosnia had been “the glob-al poster-boy” of post-conflict peace-building in the first decade after the agree-ment, but had now “moved decisivelyback into the dynamic of disintegration”.

“The international community seems tohave lost the will and Bosnian politicianson all sides seem to have abandoned thevision,” he told a conference.

“It is a deadly combination. A perfectstorm is gathering”.

Ashdown, a British politician who

Romania

served as the international community’shigh representative to Bosnia between2002 and 2006, said he did not believe areturn to conflict was likely, but added: “Icannot now discount the possibility”.

The Dayton agreement, reached in the

United States, on Nov 21, 1995, splitBosnia into two semi-independent enti-ties: the Muslim-Croat Federation and theSerbs’ Republika Srpska, which are linkedby weak central government institutionsbut also each have their own government,

police and judiciary.In July, MPs in the Republika Srpska

backed the holding of a referendum onwhether to continue recognising the statecourt system, which processes war crimesand organised crime cases, although no

A Crimean Tatar covered with the flag of the Crimean Tatars, holds a placardreading ‘Free political prisoners-hostages’, during a demonstration of CrimeanTatars, in front of the Russian embassy in Kiev, on Nov 6. Protesters demandto stop political repressions organized by Russian security forces against the

Crimean Tatars on Crimean peninsula captured by Russia in 2014. (AFP)

Steinmeier

Man stabs girl to‘death’ at schoolSOFIA, Nov 76, (RTRS): A youngman stabbed a 15-year-old girl todeath on the steps of a secondaryschool in Bulgaria on Friday, thenwounded a teacher and anotherman before shooting and criticallywounding himself, police said.

Chavdar Bozhurski, police chiefin the southeastern town of Sliven,said witnesses told investigatorsthat the attacker had been in a rela-tionship with the girl and the inci-dent may have been “a crime ofpassion”. School violence is rare inBulgaria.

Bozhurski said on national radiothat the incident began when a 28-year-old man stabbed another manof the same age in front of theSliven school.

The assailant then proceeded tothe school’s front steps and stabbedthe girl, who died on the spot.

date has been set. (AFP)❑ ❑ ❑

PM questions plan: Estonia’s pre-mier raised doubts Friday about the deci-sion of three Baltic states to calculate howmuch money they lost under some 50years of Soviet occupation, a move thatcould trigger reparation claims againstRussia.

Justice ministers from EU and NATOmembers Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania

decided Thursdaythat after a quartercentury of independ-ence, it was hightime “to calculate ina scientifically justi-fied manner the loss-es caused by thetotalitarian commu-nist occupationregime of theUSSR.”

“I don’t quiteunderstand what we

as a state have to gain from this memoran-dum,” Premier Taavi Roivas toldEstonia’s ERR public broadcaster Friday,insisting the move would complicate for-eign policy. (AFP)

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Croatia holds general vote: Croatiais holding its first parliamentary electionsince joining the European Union in 2013— and the outcome threatens to disrupt theflow of tens of thousands of refugeescrossing the Balkans if conservativesreturn to power and implement toughmeasures against the surge.

Croatia’s ruling center-left coalitionfaces a strong challenge in Sunday’s votefrom the center-right opposition, with thetwo running neck-and-neck in pre-electionpolls.

Over 300,000 asylum-seekers fleeingwars and poverty in the Middle East, Asiaand Africa have passed through Croatiasince mid-September in their search for abetter life in wealthier EU countries suchas Germany or Sweden.

The crisis has been a challenge forCroatia’s ruling Social Democrats, butthey skillfully used the influx to divertattention from critical economic problemsand improve their plummeting ratingsahead of the vote. (AFP)

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Police arrest drug lords: Serbianpolice say they have arrested several drugand arms traffickers, as well as a fugitivesuspect in this year’s clashes betweenpolice and armed groups in Macedonia.

Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovicsaid Friday the arrests were made in sepa-rate police actions throughout the country.He said police confiscated drugs and auto-matic weapons in the operation.

The Balkan region is a well-knownsmuggling gate toward Western Europe.Stefanovic says one of the suspects headed aheroin smuggling ring stretching fromTurkey to Western Europe, while four otherswere trafficking arms from Serbia to France.

He says the Macedonia suspect wasdetained on the border with Kosovo on aninternational warrant over clashes innorthern Macedonia that killed 22 peopleearlier this year. (AP)

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Fire toll rises to 38: The toll from ahorrific nightclub fire that brought downthe Romanian government has risen to 38,officials said Saturday.

Six more people have died of theirinjuries this week after the tragedy atBucharest’s Colectiv club on Oct 30, whenfireworks let off during a rock band’s per-formance triggered a blaze and a stampedeas panicked revellers tried to get out.

The fire sparked mass anti-governmentprotests, with many viewing compromisedsafety standards at the club as emblematicof Romania’s wider problem with rampantcorruption. (AFP)

PM name yet to emerge

Ponta appears in courtBUCHAREST, Nov 7, (Agencies):Victor Ponta, who quit as Romania’sprime minister this week after massprotests, made his first appearance incourt Friday on corruption charges.

As thousands of people again tookto the streets demanding the overhaulof a political system they see as cor-rupt, President Klaus Iohannis saidthe country may hold early electionsor seek to form a government of tech-nocrats.

Ponta who resigned on Wednesdayafter huge street protests sparked by adeadly nightclub fire, appeared at theHigh Court of Justice for a prelimi-nary hearing on charges of fraud, taxevasion and money laundering.

The charges related to a periodbetween 2007 and 2011 when he wasworking as a lawyer, before hebecame premier in 2012.

The 43-year-old former SocialDemocrat leader, who denies thecharges, ignored questions from thelarge media scrum that greeted him atthe court.

Friday’s hearing was focused onprocedural matters and dealing withlawyers’ requests, a court spokesmansaid. No date has been set for the startof the trial, which is expected to openin the coming weeks.

Prosecutors also suspect Ponta ofconflict of interest while in govern-ment, but that probe was stymiedwhen parliament — where his SocialDemocrat party holds a comfortablemajority — refused to lift his immu-nity from prosecution.

While he is no longer premier,Ponta remains a member of parlia-

ment and continues to enjoy immuni-ty.

Despite his legal troubles, Pontahad previously ruled out resigning,but changed his mind when lastweek’s fire at a Bucharest nightclub— which left 32 dead and nearly 200injured — saw tens of thousands todemonstrate as a wave of grief andanger swept the country.

Many saw the tragedy at theColectiv club as a sign that nothinghas changed in one of Europe’s poor-est and most corruption-pronenations. The venue was not authorisedto hold concerts or stage the pyrotech-nic display that sparked the fire.

AngerPonta’s resignation has failed to

quell public anger and on Fridaysome 15,000 people turned out acrossseveral major cities in the fourth nightof protests.

“Too much corruption, not enoughjustice,” and “corruption kills” chant-ed protesters in Bucharest, while oth-ers held a silent march in memory ofthe victims of the club fire.

Several hundred people processedthrough the city before placing can-dles outside the Colectiv nightclub.

Criticised for its silence after thetragedy, the Romanian OrthodoxChurch also said bells would tollacross the capital just before midnightin mourning for those who died in thefire.

Under sustained pressure from pro-testers, the president has told repre-sentatives of the country’s parties thatRomania may hold early elections or

form a government of technocrats.“Most political leaders are ready to

discuss early parliamentary electionsor a government of technocrats,”Iohannis told reporters.

On Thursday, the president alsomet some two dozen members of civilsociety groups involved in theprotests, who said they want “newpolitical figures” to take over, echo-ing the demonstrators’ calls for a“profound change” of the politicalsystem.

Romania’s next parliamentary elec-tion had been planned for November2016. No new date has yet been set.

Consultations over a newRomanian prime minister will resumenext week after initial talks with polit-ical and civil society leaders yieldedno candidate, President KlausIohannis said on Friday.

Iohannis met senior political andcivil figures on Wednesday andThursday to consider possible succes-sors to Ponta.

“During this round of consulta-tions, I saw that there is a need forcomplex change in Romanian poli-tics. A single round of talks is notenough,” Iohannis told reporters.

“I will call a new round of talks forearly next week. It is possible that bythe end of next week we will reach aconclusion to present to the people.”

All groups in the three-party rulingcoalition and the centrist oppositionthat met Iohannis stopped short ofsuggesting a candidate but expressedreadiness for a consensus solution.The centrist opposition wants an earlyelection.

Roivas