World

WASHINGTON — FBI agents seized all 25 works at a Jean-Michel Basquiat exhibit in Florida amid questions about their authenticity, the museum which was showing them said on Saturday.

The Orlando Museum of Art said it had complied with a request for access to works at the show called "Heroes and Monsters: Jean-Michel Basquiat" and that the paintings are now in the hands of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

"It is important to note that we still have not been led to believe the Museum has been or is the subject of any investigation," museum spokeswoman Emilia Bourmas-Fry said in an email sent to AFP.

The exhibit had been due to close June 30. The museum said it would keep cooperating. The FBI did not immediately reply to AFP's request for comment.

The paintings were done on scavenged pieces of cardboard and were largely unseen until this exhibit began in February, The New York Times reported in a story on Friday's confiscation of the works.

The Times said that it had learned last month that one of the works was painted on the back of a shipping box that bore instructions to "Align top of FedEx Shipping Label here."

But the instructions were in a typeface that was not used until 1994, six years after the artist died, the paper said, quoting a designer who worked for Federal Express.

The FBI seized the paintings with a warrant based on a 41-page affidavit that said the agency's probe had unearthed "false information related to the alleged prior ownership of the paintings", the Times said.

The probe also revealed "attempts to sell the paintings using false provenance, and bank records show possible solicitation of investment in artwork that is not authentic".

The owners of the works as well as the director of the museum, Aaron De Groft, say Basquiat made these paintings in 1982 and sold them to a now deceased television screenwriter named Thad Mumford for $5,000, the Times said. They said Mumford put them in a storage unit and apparently forgot about them for 30 years.

But in the affidavit related to the search warrant, FBI special agent Elizabeth Rivas states that she interviewed Mumford in 2014 and learned that "Mumford never purchased Basquiat artwork and was unaware of any Basquiat artwork being in his storage locker", the Times said.

If authentic the paintings would be worth around $100 million, it added, quoting art experts.

KANTÁRA, Cyprus — In the end, it was Mother Nature that extinguished a wildfire that scorched thousands of acres and forced the evacuation of villages in the north of divided Cyprus, officials said on Saturday.

Aircraft from both sides of Cyprus, as well as British military and Israeli personnel, had responded to calls for help to fight the fire which began on Tuesday in the Kantara area of the Kyrenia Mountain range.

"The fire... has been extinguished to a large extent with the effect of the rain that fell last night," said Unal Ustel, prime minister of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which is recognised only by Ankara.

"We have survived a great disaster."

There have been no reports of casualties but Turkish Cypriot authorities said more than 6,500 acres had been burned.

Helicopters were still dropping water onto the burning ridge lines on Friday, before intense rains fell overnight.

Forestry department head Cemil Karzaoglu said the fire was completely under control and mopping up operations were continuing where smoke was still visible.

Ustel expressed gratitude to “the British Base Areas, Israel and the Greek Cypriot administration for their support in extinguishing the fire from the air”.

The United Nations peacekeeping force said it coordinated the firefighting response.

According to Cypriot media reports earlier, at least four villages were evacuated.

Emergency services from Israel and Britain’s Sovereign Base Areas on the eastern Mediterranean island often help fight Cyprus’s frequent wildfires.

In July last year, blazes that broke out in the Larnaca and Limassol districts claimed the lives of four Egyptian farmworkers.

GAYAN DISTRICT, Afghanistan — Afghanistan's Taliban rulers pledged on Saturday they would not interfere with international efforts to distribute aid to tens of thousands of people affected by this week's deadly earthquake.

Even before Wednesday's quake the country was in the grip of a humanitarian crisis, with aid flows and financial assistance severely curtailed since the Taliban's return to power.

The 5.9-magnitude quake struck hardest in the rugged east along the border with Pakistan, as people slept, killing over 1,000 and leaving thousands more homeless.

Aid organisations have complained in the past that Taliban authorities have tried to divert aid to areas and people that supported their hardline insurgency — or even seized goods to distribute themselves and claim the credit.

But Khan Mohammad Ahmad, a senior official in hard-hit Paktika province, said international organisations helping relief efforts would not be interfered with.

"Whether it is WFP, UNICEF or any other organisation... the international community or the United Nations... they will do the distribution by themselves," said Khan.

"The responsible people from the Islamic Emirate are here... our members will be always with them [to help]," he added, referring to the Taliban's new name for Afghanistan.

Huge challenge 

The disaster poses a huge logistical challenge for the government, which has isolated itself from much of the world by introducing hardline rule that subjugates women and girls.

But the international community has been quick to respond to the latest disaster to befall the country and aid is starting to flow — although not always where it is needed most.

"What don't we need? We need everything," Said Wali told AFP in Gayan district, close to the epicentre of the quake, around 200 kilometres southeast of Kabul.

"We are alive, but there is no one listening to us and we have not received any aid so far."

Many of the buildings in Wali’s village — like most in the Afghan countryside, made out of mud bricks — had been flattened in the quake.

“Our beds and all our stuff are buried under our home. Our homes are destroyed... there is nothing left,” he said.

“Currently we need money so that we can buy our necessities — clothes, mattresses, equipment. We also need flour and rice.”

The country’s health minister, who toured Gayan district on Saturday, said people were deeply traumatised by the quake and reluctant to return to their homes

“The whole community is badly affected, mentally and psychologically,” Qalandar Ebad told AFP.

“I think now the situation is critical... society is totally damaged here.”

But Ramiz Alakbarov, the UN’s top official in Afghanistan, praised Afghans for their resilience and courage after touring the area on Saturday.

“What signs of resolve in face of this adversity — I would say endless adversity,” he told AFP.

“Endless difficulties, endless tragedy, and yet these people are so gracious, so strong. And they are willing to overcome, and they are coming together as a community and as a society.”

Delivering aid has been made more difficult because the quake struck areas already suffering the effects of heavy rain, causing rockfalls and mudslides that wiped out hamlets perched precariously on mountain slopes.

Communications have also been hit with mobile phone towers and power lines toppled.

Officials say nearly 10,000 houses were destroyed, an alarming number in an area where the average household size is more than 20 people.

Even before the Taliban takeover, Afghanistan’s emergency response teams were stretched to deal with the natural disasters that frequently strike the country.

But with only a handful of airworthy planes and helicopters left since they returned to power, their response to the latest catastrophe is further limited.

Afghanistan is frequently hit by earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Kush mountain range, near the junction of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates.

Afghanistan’s deadliest recent earthquake killed 5,000 in 1998 in the north-eastern provinces of Takhar and Badakhshan.

KYIV, Ukraine — Russia's army has "fully occupied" the key Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk after weeks of fighting, its mayor said on Saturday, an important strategic win for Moscow as it seeks to gain full control over the east of the country.

The industrial hub of Severodonetsk has been the scene of weeks of running battles, but the Ukrainian army said on Friday that its outgunned forces would withdraw to better defend the neighbouring city of Lysychansk.

"The city has been fully occupied by the Russians," Mayor Oleksandr Striuk said on Saturday.

A few hours earlier, pro-Moscow separatists said Russian troops and their allies had entered Lysychansk, which faces Severodonetsk across the river.

"Street fighting is currently taking place," a representative of the separatists, Andrei Marochko, said on Telegram, in a claim that could not be independently verified.

Four months after Russian forces invaded Ukraine, they have focused on the eastern Donbas region, gradually making gains despite fierce resistance.

Also capturing Lysychansk would allow Russia to focus its attention on Kramatorsk and Slovyansk further west in its attempt to conquer the Donbas, Ukraine's industrial heartland.

The breakthrough came on the eve of a week of feverish Western diplomacy, with US President Joe Biden flying to Europe for a G-7 summit starting Sunday, and NATO talks later in the week.

The Western allies will take stock of the effectiveness of sanctions imposed so far against Moscow, consider possible new aid for Ukraine, and begin turning their eye to longer-term reconstruction plans.

The European Union offered a strong show of support on Thursday when it granted Ukraine candidate status, although the path to membership is long.

Moscow dismissed the EU decision as a move to “contain Russia” geopolitically.

Pull in Belarus 

In another potentially significant development, Ukraine said it had come under “massive bombardment” early on Saturday morning from neighbouring Belarus, a Russian ally not officially involved in the conflict.

Twenty rockets “fired from the territory of Belarus and from the air” targeted the village of Desna in the northern Chernigiv region, Ukraine’s northern military command said.

It said infrastructure was hit, but no casualties had yet been reported.

Belarus has provided logistic support to Moscow since the February 24 invasion, particularly in the first few weeks, and like Russia has been targeted by Western sanctions — but is officially not involved in the conflict.

“Today’s strike is directly linked to Kremlin efforts to pull Belarus as a co-belligerent into the war in Ukraine,” the Ukrainian intelligence service said.

On Saturday afternoon, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow would send Belarus missiles able to carry nuclear warheads within months.

“We will transfer to Belarus Iskander-M tactical missile systems, which can use ballistic or cruise missiles, in their conventional and nuclear versions,” he said, as he met his Belarussian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko in Saint Petersburg.

Evacuating the Azot plant 

As in the southern port of city of Mariupol before it, the battle for Severodonetsk has come with a heavy price.

Sergiy Gaiday, governor of the Lugansk region that includes the city, said on Friday that 90 per cent of Severodonetsk had been damaged.

“Remaining in positions that have been relentlessly shelled for months just doesn’t make sense,” he said.

The Ukrainian army said it would withdraw its forces from the city of some 100,000 inhabitants before the war to better defend Lysychansk.

On Saturday, Severodonetsk Mayor Striuk said civilians had started to evacuate the Azot chemical plant, where several hundred people had been hiding from Russian shelling.

“These people have spent almost three months of their lives in basements, shelters. That’s tough emotionally and physically,” he said, adding they would now need medical and psychological support.

Pro-Moscow separatists said Russian forces and their allies had taken control of the Azot factory and “evacuated” more than 800 civilians sheltering there.

The mainly Russian-speaking Donbas has long been a focus of Russia.

Since 2014 it has been partially under the control of pro-Moscow separatists, who set up self-declared breakaway republics in Lugansk and Donetsk.

Human remains 

Millions of Ukrainians have fled their homes and their country since the invasion, the majority to neighbouring Poland.

Some foreigners have gone the other way to fight. Russia said Saturday its troops had killed up to 80 Polish fighters in strikes on a factory in Konstantinovka in the Donetsk region, a claim that could not be verified.

Russia has also intensified its offensive in the northern city of Kharkiv in recent days.

An AFP team on Saturday saw a 10-storey administrative building in the city-centre hit by missiles overnight, causing a fire but no casualties.

It had already been bombed, prompting one soldier on the scene to note: “The Russians are finishing what they started.”

On Friday, the same reporters found a stray dog eating human remains in the town of Chuguiv, southeast of Kharkiv, where an attack earlier this week left six dead.

WASHINGTON — Protesters were expected to pour onto streets across the United States on Saturday as anger flared over the Supreme Court's decision to strike down the right to abortion.

Several right-leaning states imposed immediate bans on abortion after the court on Friday shredded five decades of constitutional protections for the procedure, prompting leaders around the world to voice concern.

The conservative-dominated court overturned the landmark 1973 "Roe vs Wade" decision enshrining a woman's right to an abortion, saying individual states could restrict or ban the procedure themselves.

"The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion," the court said in a 6-3 ruling on one of America's most bitterly divisive issues. "The authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives."

A somber President Joe Biden called the ruling a "tragic error" stemming from "extreme ideology".

"The health and life of women in this nation are now at risk," Biden said, warning that other rights such as same-sex marriage and contraception could be threatened next.

The Democratic president urged Congress to restore abortion protections as federal law and said Roe would be "on the ballot" in November's midterm elections.

Criticism of the Supreme Court decision also came from abroad, including from US allies like Britain, whose Prime Minister Boris Johnson called it "a big step backwards".

Canada's leader Justin Trudeau said it was "horrific", and French President Emmanuel Macron voiced his "solidarity with women whose freedoms are today challenged".

Acknowledging the international concerns, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken insisted his department would "remain fully committed to helping provide access to reproductive health services and advancing reproductive rights around the world".

'You have failed us' 

Hundreds of people — some weeping for joy and others with grief — gathered outside the fenced-off Supreme Court on Friday as the ruling came down.

"It's hard to imagine living in a country that does not respect women as human beings and their right to control their bodies," said Jennifer Lockwood-Shabat, 49, a mother of two daughters who was choking back tears.

"You have failed us," read a sign held up by one protester. "Shame", said another.

But Gwen Charles, a 21-year-old opponent of abortion, was jubilant.

"This is the day that we have been waiting for," Charles told AFP. "We get to usher in a new culture of life in the United States."

Just hours after the ruling, Missouri banned abortion — making no exception for rape or incest — and so did South Dakota, except where the life of the mother is at risk.

Protesters took to the streets in St Louis to decry the ban, gathering at what had been Missouri's last abortion clinic.

"It's absolutely disturbing," said Lilian Dodenhoff, 32, standing outside the facility. "So I just immediately reached out to people that I knew shouldn't be alone right now."

As of Friday evening, at least seven states had already banned abortion — Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma and South Dakota.

Many more are expected to follow suit or severely restrict the procedure.

Protesters also marched in New York, Boston and other US cities as anger grew.

"Abortion is a human right, not just for the rich and white," protesters in New York chanted on Friday.

Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul met the crowd at Union Square, telling reporters abortion rights were "secure" in New York, and that the state would be a "safe harbour" for those unable to receive the procedure in their own states.

"We took action already, we allocated $35 million to support our abortion providers to be able to help our sisters across this nation find their way here," she said. "This is their safe harbour."

There were incidents at some demonstrations on Friday, including one in the Iowa city of Cedar Rapids, where a pickup truck drove through a group of protesters, running over at least one woman's foot, according to local media reports.

In Arizona, CNN reported that authorities used tear gas to disperse protesters on Friday night after they "repeatedly pounded on the glass doors of the State Senate Building", according to Arizona Department of Public Safety spokesperson Bart Graves.

'Egregiously wrong' 

In the majority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito said Roe vs Wade was "egregiously wrong".

"Abortion presents a profound moral issue on which Americans hold sharply conflicting views," he said. "The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion."

The court tossed out the legal argument in Roe vs Wade that women had the right to abortion based on the constitutional right to privacy with regard to their own bodies.

While the ruling represents a victory for the religious right, leaders of the Christian conservative movement said it does not go far enough and they will push for a nationwide ban.

"While it's a major step in the right direction, overturning Roe does not end abortion," said the group March for Life.

"God made the decision," said former Republican president Donald Trump while praising the ruling.

The decision was made possible by Trump's nomination to the court of three conservative justices — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

'Will not stop there' 

The three liberal justices on the court dissented from the ruling.

"One result of today's decision is certain: the curtailment of women's rights, and of their status as free and equal citizens," they said.

Abortion providers could now face criminal penalties and "some States will not stop there," they warned.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, 13 states have adopted so-called "trigger laws" that will ban abortion virtually immediately.

Ten others have pre-1973 laws that could go into force or legislation that would ban abortion after six weeks, before many women know they are pregnant.

Women in states with strict anti-abortion laws will either have to continue with their pregnancy, undergo a clandestine abortion, obtain abortion pills, or travel to another state where it remains legal.

ROME — Italian lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to back Prime Minister Mario Draghi's policy on Ukraine on Wednesday, the day after the largest partner in his coalition government imploded over the issue.

Draghi has taken a firm line on Russia's invasion, sending weapons to Kyiv, backing sanctions on Moscow despite Italy's reliance on Russian gas and supporting Ukraine's hopes of joining the European Union.

But there have been rumblings of unease within his coalition government, which burst into the open on Tuesday with a split in parliament's biggest party, the Five Star Movement.

Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio announced he was leaving the party, accusing it of showing "ambiguity" over Ukraine at a time when Western unity was crucial.

An estimated 60 lawmakers are following him into the grouping, dubbed "Together for the Future" — just over a quarter of the Five Star's parliamentary members.

The move risks upsetting the fragile balance of power in Draghi's coalition government, a year before general elections are due and at a difficult time for Italians battling skyrocketing inflation.

But a vote Wednesday suggests parliament still backs the premier, with the lower Chamber of Deputies agreeing by 410 to 29 a resolution supporting the Ukraine policy, albeit with more input from lawmakers.

The senate similarly approved it on Tuesday.

"Unity is essential in these moments because the decisions that must be taken are very difficult," Draghi said before Wednesday's result, which came one day before an EU summit in Brussels begins.

In an uncharacteristically combative address to deputies, the former head of the European Central Bank accused those who disagreed with his policy of effectively calling on Kyiv to surrender.

"There is a fundamental difference between two points of view. One is mine — Ukraine must defend itself, and sanctions and the sending of weapons serve this goal," Draghi said to applause.

"The other point of view is different. Ukraine must not defend itself, we shouldn't do sanctions, we shouldn't send armaments, Russia is too strong, why should we take her on, let Ukraine submit."

UNITED NATIONS, United States — An estimated 2,000 homes have been destroyed by the deadly earthquake in Afghanistan, and a lack of machinery is hampering a rush to find survivors, a UN envoy said on  Wednesday.

The earthquake struck a remote border region of Afghanistan overnight killing at least 1,000 people and injuring hundreds more, with the toll expected to rise.

"We believe that nearly 2,000 homes are destroyed," the UN's humanitarian coordinator for Afghanistan Ramiz Alakbarov told reporters.

Briefing journalists at the UN's headquarters in New York via video-link from Kabul, Alakbarov said the number of people displaced would be much higher.

"The average size of an Afghan family is at least seven, eight people," he added, noting that sometimes several families live in one house.

The 5.9-magnitude quake struck hardest in the rugged east, where people already lead difficult lives in a country in the grip of a humanitarian disaster made worse by the Taliban takeover in August 2021.

Alakbarov said Afghanistan's "de-facto authorities" had deployed more than 50 ambulances and four or five helicopters to badly hit Paktika province, as well as providing unspecified cash assistance to families of the deceased.

But he suggested a lack of diggers was impacting relief efforts.

"As the UN, our teams do not have specific equipment to take people from under the rubble. This has to rely mostly on the efforts of the de facto authorities, which also have certain limitations in that respect," he said.

Even before the Taliban takeover, Afghanistan's emergency response teams were stretched to deal with the natural disasters that frequently struck the country. But with only a handful of airworthy planes and helicopters left since the hardline Islamists returned to power, any immediate response to the latest catastrophe is further limited.