World

PALERMO, Italy — Italy’s former interior minister and far-right leader Matteo Salvini went on trial on Saturday for allegedly illegally blocking over 100 migrants in dire sanitary conditions from disembarking from a rescue ship.

Salvini, the leader of the far-right League Party who is known for an “Italians first” policy, is charged with kidnapping and abuse of office for using his position as interior minister to detain the 147 migrants at sea in August 2019.

On the opening day of the trial in Palermo, prosecutors asked that they be allowed to question Salvini, who was present in court, on the stand.

The hearing, which came a month after the trial was first postponed, was largely procedural and lasted less than three hours before Judge Roberto Murgia set the next hearing for December 17.

If convicted, Salvini could face a maximum of 15 years in prison.

He has said the decision was not his alone, but agreed by the government, including by the then-prime minister, Giuseppe Conte.

Prosecutors have asked that the witness list include Conte, as well as Italy’s current Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese and Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio.

Judge Murgia said US actor Richard Gere would be allowed to take the stand as a witness, as requested by civil party Open Arms, the Spanish charity that operated the rescue vessel.

The actor had boarded the ship in solidarity with the migrants before it docked at the Sicilian island of Lampedusa.

Prosecutor Francesco Lo Voi had earlier told the court the actor’s presence was not required as it would create “spectacle” and there were more qualified witnesses.

Salvini tweeted a photo of himself inside the courtroom, standing in front one of the cells used for some defendants.

“This is the courtroom of the Palermo prison. The trial wanted by the left and by the fans of illegal immigration begins: How much will it cost the Italian citizens?” he tweeted.

Ahead of the hearing, Open Arms’ founder and director Oscar Camps said the trial was not politically motivated.

“Saving people isn’t a crime, but an obligation not only by captains but by the entire state,” Camps told journalists.

The beginning of the trial came as 406 migrants rescued in various operations off the coast of Libya by the German charity ship Sea Watch 3 arrived at the Sicilian port of Pozzallo to be disembarked.

‘Closed ports’ policy 

In the 2019 Open Arms case, the migrants were finally allowed to leave the vessel after six days, following an order by the prosecutor’s office.

A subsequent onboard inspection revealed serious overcrowding and dire sanitary conditions.

Salvini has staunchly defended himself, saying he was protecting the country with his “closed ports” policy, which aimed to stop people attempting the dangerous Mediterranean crossing to Italy.

Italy’s Senate voted last year to strip Salvini of his parliamentary immunity, paving the way for the trial.

A related case in which Salvini was accused of blocking other migrants at sea on an Italian coastguard boat was thrown out by a court in Catania earlier this year.

Salvini’s League takes a hard line on migrants, arguing that Italy bears an unfair burden as the first point of entry into Europe for those arriving from northern Africa.

When he blocked the ships, Salvini was part of a coalition government and held the positions of interior minister and deputy prime minister.


FRANKFURT — The three parties working to form Germany's next government on Thursday unveiled an accelerated timeline for their coalition talks, saying they aimed to have Social Democrat Olaf Scholz installed as chancellor by early December.

"The timeline is ambitious," said Volker Wissing, general secretary of the liberal Free Democrats (FDP), at the start of formal coalition talks with the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Greens.

"Germany needs to have a stable government as soon as possible," he told a Berlin press conference.

The three parties, which have never before teamed up together on a federal level in Germany, said they wanted the coalition negotiations to be wrapped up by the end of November.

This would allow for a government to be in place early December, with Scholz -- the current finance minister and vice chancellor -- to be elected chancellor by the Bundestag lower house of parliament "in the week of December 6", Wissing said.

The three parties had earlier targeted a Christmas deadline, signalling they are optimistic about clinching a deal despite not being natural bedfellows.

If they succeed in sticking to the faster schedule, Chancellor Angela Merkel will fall short of breaking Helmut Kohl's record as the longest-serving leader in post-war Germany -- by just a few days.

Merkel herself is bowing out of politics after 16 years in power but will stay on in a caretaker capacity until a new government is in place.

European Union peers are watching the German events closely, aware that the next leader of the bloc's most populous country and its largest economy will play a key role in helping to shape future EU policies too.

'New start' 

Scholz's Social Democrats narrowly won a September 26 general election, while the Greens and the FDP came third and fourth respectively, thrusting the two smaller parties into the role of kingmakers.

Merkel's centre-right CDU-CSU alliance scored its worst-ever election result and came second, leaving the conservatives preparing for a stint in the opposition.

However, CDU leader and chancellor hopeful Armin Laschet has said he remains open to trying to form a government with the kingmaker parties should the Scholz-led effort fail.

But the SPD, FDP and Greens have voiced confidence they can build what Scholz has called a "coalition of progress", also dubbed a "traffic light" alliance after the parties' red, yellow and green colours.

Green Party general secretary Michael Kellner said Germany had a chance "at a new start".

Negotiators from the three parties will now split up across 22 working groups. They have until November 10 to come up with what will form the basis for a coalition agreement.

A smaller team of negotiators will then take over to resolve the "last remaining areas of conflict" by the end of that month, said SPD general secretary Lars Klingbeil.

The teams will be working from an in-principle agreement struck last week, which sketched out the major policy priorities for the next four years.

It includes massive investments in climate protection, infrastructure and education to help Germany, an ageing nation and export powerhouse, prepare for a greener and more digital future.

Finance minister speculation 

With pledges to respect Germany's debt limits and not raise taxes -- both flagship FDP campaign promises -- it remains to be seen however how the plans will be financed.

The three parties also want to lower the voting age from 18 to 16, raise the minimum wage to 12 euros per hour and bring forward Germany's coal exit.

Speculation is growing about who will snag the coveted finance ministry portfolio, with observers betting on FDP leader Christian Lindner or Greens co-leader Robert Habeck.

Depending on who gets the job, Germany could walk a very different fiscal path.

The FDP traditionally favours low public spending, low taxes and wants private companies to take the lead in fighting climate change. It also wants to maintain Germany's cherished "debt brake" that limits new borrowing.

The Greens meanwhile want to spend 500 billion euros on climate protection measures over the next decade, hoping to find "leeway" within the debt brake.



KABUL — The Taliban struck several journalists to prevent media coverage of a women's rights protest in Kabul on Thursday.

A group of about 20 women marched from near the ministry of education to the ministry of finance in the Afghan capital.

Wearing colourful headscarves they chanted slogans including: "Don't politicise education", as traffic drove by shortly before 10 am.

The women held placards saying: "We don't have the rights to study and work", and" "Joblessness, poverty, hunger", as they walked with their arms in the air.

The Taliban authorities allowed the women to walk freely for around an hour and a half, AFP journalists saw.

However, one foreign journalist was struck with the butt of a rifle by one Taliban fighter, who swore and kicked the photographer in the back as another punched him.

At least two more journalists were hit as they scattered, pursued by Taliban fighters swinging fists and launching kicks.

Zahra Mohammadi, one of the protest organisers, told AFP the women were marching despite the risks they face.

"The situation is that the Taliban don't respect anything: not journalists -- foreign and local -- or women," she said.

"The schools must reopen to girls. But the Taliban took this right from us."

High school girls have been blocked from returning to classes for more than a month, while many women have been banned from returning to work since the Taliban seized power in mid-August.

"My message to all girls and women is this: 'Don't be afraid of the Taliban, even if your family doesn't allow you to leave your home. Don't be afraid. Go out, make sacrifices, fight for your rights'," Mohammadi said.

"We have to make this sacrifice so that the next generation will be in peace."

Children walked alongside the protest in downtown Kabul, although it was unclear if they were part of the organised group.

Some Taliban fighters policing the march wore full camouflaged combat gear, including body armour, helmets and knee pads, while others were wearing traditional Afghan clothing.

Their weapons included US-made M16 assault rifles and AK-47s.

Unthinkable under the hardline Islamist group's last rule in the 1990s, Afghans have staged street protests across the country since the Taliban returned to power, sometimes with several hundred people and many with women at forefront.

But a ban on unauthorised demonstrations has meant protests against Afghanistan's new masters have dwindled.

MIAMI — A former student pleaded guilty on Wednesday to killing 17 people in a shooting rampage at a high school in Parkland, Florida, and apologised in court to relatives of the victims.

Nikolas Cruz, who was 19 at the time, took a legally purchased AR-15 assault rifle into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, his former school, on Valentine's Day in 2018 and killed 17 students and staff members.

Cruz pleaded guilty to 17 counts of first-degree murder and 17 counts of attempted murder for those wounded during the attack, which sparked a student-led movement for tighter gun control laws.

Cruz, who was dressed in a blue collared shirt and sweater vest and wearing large glasses and a face mask, responded "guilty" as Judge Elizabeth Scherer read off each of the charges in a Fort Lauderdale courthouse.

He told the judge he was suffering from a "little anxiety" but understood the charges against him and was pleading guilty of his own volition.

Cruz will now go before a jury for the penalty phase of the trial. He faces a minimum of life in prison without parole but prosecutors have said they will seek the death penalty.

The judge set January 4, 2022 for the start of jury selection for the penalty phase.

Following his guilty pleas, Cruz, who is now 23, apologised to the relatives of his victims.

"I am very sorry for what I did and I have to live with it every day," he said, reading from a prepared statement. "It brings me nightmares."

"If I were to get a second chance I would do everything in my power to try to help others," he said.

Addressing relatives of the victims, Cruz said: "I believe it's your decision to decide where I go, whether I live or die, not the jury's."

Relatives of some of the victims were among the spectators in the courtroom and wiped away tears as a prosecutor recounted the attack in chilling detail.

Mental health problems 

The shooting was the worst school massacre in the United States since the horror at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012, which left 26 dead.

The Florida shooting stunned the country and sparked new efforts, led by students from the school itself, for tougher gun control — although the polarised US Congress has yet to enact meaningful gun reform.

A rally organised by Stoneman Douglas students, "March for Our Lives", drew hundreds of thousands to the nation's capital in March 2018.

President Joe Biden marked the third anniversary of the Parkland shooting in February with a call on Congress to enact "commonsense" gun law reforms.

"This administration will not wait for the next mass shooting to heed that call," Biden said. "We will take action to end our epidemic of gun violence and make our schools and communities safer."

Biden said he wants Congress to pass laws that would require background checks on all gun sales and ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

"The time to act is now," he said,

Cruz bought the weapon legally, despite having been in local records as having a history of mental health problems.

Expelled from school for disciplinary reasons, Cruz was known to be fixated on firearms — and had reportedly been identified as a potential threat to his classmates.

The FBI confirmed it was alerted several months before the attack to a message posted on YouTube, in which a user named Nikolas Cruz vowed: "I'm going to be a professional school shooter."

On the day of the attack Cruz arrived at the school in an Uber, began shooting indiscriminately at students and staff, and fled nine minutes later, leaving behind a scene of carnage.

He was arrested nearby shortly afterwards.

Footage recovered from his phone showed he had filmed his plans to attack his former school, saying his goal was to kill "at least 20 people".

Cruz told a detective after his arrest that he heard demons ordering him to "buy weapons, kill animals and destroy everything".

By Claire Savage
Agence France-Presse

WASHINGTON — Social media posts claim that Colin Powell's death from complications caused by COVID-19 means vaccines against the disease are ineffective. But Powell had a type of cancer that experts say undermines the efficacy of the shots, and data shows his age left him especially vulnerable.

"PROOF this Vaccine does NOT EVEN WORK, or-and is NOT EVEN a REAL VACCINE," said a Facebook post sharing an article about the retired four-star general and former secretary of state's death.

Powell, a trailblazer in the military and US government, died on October 18 at Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre.

His family confirmed that the 84-year-old was fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

In the immediate aftermath, opponents of the shots seized on that disclosure in numerous online posts as evidence that the vaccines do not work.

But Powell was especially vulnerable because of myeloma, a blood cancer that affects plasma cells that help produce antibodies against harmful pathogens.

In what might have been his last interview, Powell told journalist Bob Woodward that he had multiple myeloma, as well as a second underlying condition, Parkinson's disease.

"If you had to choose a medical condition that would severely impact or diminish your response to vaccines, it would be multiple myeloma," said Onyema Ogbuagu, an infectious diseases specialist at Yale School of Medicine.

'An outlier' 

Powell's condition "severely limited his ability to mount a response to the vaccine... he's an outlier, unfortunately", Ogbuagu added.

Not only do multiple myeloma patients often mount a poor antibody response to COVID-19 vaccination, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai researchers "discovered that these patients also have a weak response from a different part of the immune system, known as T cells".

Samir Parekh, a co-author of the Mount Sinai study, said that treatments for myeloma patients can make them even more immunocompromised.

However, study results showed that COVID-19 shots still offer protection, he said. "There's no question that the vaccines work."

Data released by the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention shows that the elderly are more vulnerable to COVID-19, even if they are vaccinated — and Powell's age put him in that high-risk group.

The data from August showed that although the vaccinated were six times less likely to become infected and 11 times less likely to die from the disease, fatalities among those aged 80 and over was almost as high as those aged between 50-64 who were unvaccinated.

BAGHDAD — Hundreds of supporters of Iraq's powerful Hashed Al Shaabi, a pro-Iranian former paramilitary force, began a sit-in near Baghdad's high-security Green Zone on Tuesday to protest "fraud" in this month's parliamentary elections.

The Conquest (Fateh) Alliance, the political arm of the multi-party Hashed, won around 15 of 329 seats contested in the October 10 vote, according to preliminary results.

In the last parliament it held 48, making it the second-largest bloc.

The big winner this time, with more than 70 seats according to the initial count, was the movement of Moqtada Sadr, a Shiite Muslim preacher who campaigned as a nationalist and critic of Iran.

But the numerous political parties will engage in lengthy negotiations to form alliances and name a new prime minister.

An AFP correspondent said several hundred Hashed supporters gathered on a Baghdad street leading to an entrance to the Green Zone, which is home to the US and other embassies, as well as Iraq's electoral commission and government offices.

"No to fraud, no to America," they chanted.

The Hashed demands the withdrawal of US forces from the country.

Protesters later began setting up tents for the sit-in.

"The results that were announced were rigged," said Ahmed Salman, a 23-year-old day labourer, helping to put up a tent.

"We'll stay here until they give back the votes they stole from us."

Another protester, a 25-year-old man wearing a black COVID mask and sunglasses, said: “The objective of the fraud is clear... it is the dissolution of the Hashed.” He declined to be identified.

Hashed supporters have organised sporadic protests across the country for several days.

On Sunday, they burnt tyres and blocked roads south and north of Baghdad.

Activists accuse the Hashed’s armed forces, whose 160,000 fighters are now integrated into Iraq’s state security forces, of being beholden to Iran and acting as an instrument of oppression against critics.

Hashed leaders have rejected the results as a “scam” and said they will appeal, ahead of a final tally expected in the next few weeks.

On Saturday a coalition of Shiite parties, to which the Hashed belongs, toughened their tone, accusing the electoral commission of not correcting “major violations” in the vote counting, and blaming it for “the failure of the electoral process”.

They warned of negative repercussions on democracy.

The Hashed is still expected to carry weight in parliament through the co-optation of independent candidates and other alliances.

STRASBOURG, France — Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki accused the EU of "blackmail" on Tuesday in a public clash with European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen over his country's rejection of parts of EU law.

The ferocious row, played out in the European Parliament, underlined the seriousness of the issue which both Brussels and Warsaw say threatens the cohesion of the 27-nation bloc.

Von der Leyen, speaking just before and after Morawiecki took the podium, warned that her Commission, tasked as guardian of the EU treaties, "will act" to rein in Poland.

She said a controversial October 7 ruling by Poland's Consitutional Court challenging the primacy of EU law was an attempt "to take an axe to the European treaties by undermining their legitimacy".

"Undermining any of these essential pillars puts our European democracy at risk. We cannot let this happen. We will not let this happen," she said.

Von der Leyen spoke of a number of legal, financial and political options being considered, adding that "the rule of law and the treaties of the European Union are to be defended with all instruments at our disposal".

Morawiecki, in a long speech, hit back by saying "I will not have EU politicians blackmail Poland".

Dismissing MEPs' assertions that Poland had taken a step towards leaving the EU with the ruling, he insisted his country's place was firmly in the bloc.

Instead, he argued there was a "fundamental misunderstanding" in that EU law derived from its treaties could only be applied in specified areas, and Poland's constitution was supreme in all other aspects.

He suggested the rule of law issue was being used as a "pretext" by Brussels to force Poland into line.

The duel in the parliament brought to a head tensions between the European Commission and Warsaw that have been festering for years.

The Commission has taken Warsaw to task for moves to scrap judges' independence and other policies seen as rolling back democratic norms.

The EU executive and MEPs have also criticised Poland for ultraconservative social policies pushed by the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) Party that restrict LGBTQ rights and place a near-total ban on abortions.

One of the measures the Commission could use against Poland is withholding recovery cash from a pooled EU fund set up for the bloc to bounce back from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

Poland’s plan, asking for 24 billion euros ($28 billion) in grants and 12 billion euros in cheap loans, is still being weighed, with the Commission saying approval would come with strings attached.

Von der Leyen hinted that the issue could eventually find its way to the European Court of Justice, warning: “We have never yet lost a court case on rule of law.”

Poland, though, has the power to play spoiler in several key EU policy areas that require unanimity among the 27 countries, among them migration and fighting climate change.

It also has the support of Hungary, another bete noire for Brussels seen to be flouting rule of law.

The leaders of the EU are to hold a summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday. The wrangling over Poland could move up its agenda, with The Netherlands and Luxembourg especially critical of Warsaw.

As he went into a preparatory meeting of EU European affairs ministers on Tuesday, Luxembourg’s Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn told AFP: “Europe will not survive if rule of law falls. That’s very clear.”

The EU justice commissioner, Didier Reynders, also attending, said the Commission was “very concerned” about the row with Poland.

“We will continue to debate the [Polish recovery] plan,” he said, linking it to Poland’s judicial reforms.

“There must be both investments and reforms, and these reforms go to the independence of the courts, and so we are waiting for a very clear message on this topic,” he said.