Month: January 2024

Hundreds of cargo ships traveling from Asia to Europe are now avoiding the Red Sea and the Suez Canal route due to persistent attacks and hijackings by Houthi militants responding to the Israel-Hamas war. The International Chamber of Shipping, a major trade group, says these incidents have caused significant disruptions in global trade, leading to increased costs and delays. Jonathan Spier narrates this report from Alfonso Beato in Barcelona, one of the main ports in Europe handling cargo from the Red Sea.
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BELGRADE, Serbia — A trial started Monday in Serbia for the parents of a teenager who is accused of killing 10 people and injuring six in a mass shooting at his school last May that left the Balkan nation in shock. 

The suspected shooter, 13-year-old Kosta Kecmanovic, has been held in a mental institution since the attack and cannot be held criminally liable under Serbian law because of his age. His father and mother were charged with a “serious act against general safety” for failing to safeguard the weapon and ammunition used in the shooting. 

The High Court in the capital, Belgrade, decided to keep the entire proceedings closed to the public despite calls by the defense lawyers that they be open. The couple reportedly embraced in the courtroom and wept together, according to local media reports. 

The shooting at a school in Belgrade last May 4, which left nine schoolmates and a security guard dead, was followed by another mass slaying a day later in central Serbia that killed eight people and wounded 14. The two attacks triggered months of protests of Serbia’s populist President Aleksandar Vucic for allegedly creating a culture of violence in a country that went through a series of bloody wars in the 1990s. 

Kecmanovic’s father faces additional charges, including an accusation of training the boy how to shoot without properly guarding the weapons at their home. The manager of a shooting range and an instructor also have been charged. 

Serbia has one of the highest gun ownership rates in the world. The country is full of weapons left over from the conflicts of the 1990s. 

Chief prosecutor Nenad Stefanovic told state RTS broadcaster that he expects “a free and fair trial.” 

The defense lawyers said Monday they are against keeping the trial closed to the public. 

“Today the court made a decision to exclude the public in the entire course of this procedure, stating that this is done to protect the interests of minors and some private interests of the participants in the procedure,” lawyer Irina Borovic said. “Our position is that the decision of the court was absolutely hasty.” 
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London — King Charles III and his daughter-in-law, the Princess of Wales, have both left a private London hospital following unrelated medical treatments that have made the health of the royal family headlines news in the United Kingdom.

The 75-year-old monarch was admitted to the London Clinic on Friday for treatment of an enlarged prostate, which Buckingham Palace described as benign. The princess, formerly Kate Middleton, has been at the hospital in central London for the past two weeks following abdominal surgery for an undisclosed condition.

Charles walked out of the clinic with his wife, Queen Camilla, at about 3 p.m. local time (1500 GMT; 10 a.m. EST) on Monday, stopping to smile and wave to well-wishers but ignoring shouted questions from reporters. A few hours earlier, the princess’ office said that she had returned home to recuperate, though she wasn’t seen leaving the hospital and details about when she left weren’t released.

“His majesty would like to thank the medical team and all those involved in supporting his hospital visit, and is grateful for all the kind messages he has received in recent days.” Buckingham Palace said in a statement.

Charles, who ascended the throne 16 months ago, was diagnosed with an enlarged prostate on Jan. 17 after he experienced undisclosed symptoms. He canceled engagements and was urged to rest before the procedure, which was completed on Friday afternoon.

The king decided to announce the surgery in advance in an effort to encourage other men to have their prostates checked in line with public health advice.

The princess is “making good progress” in her recovery, her office at Kensington Palace said Monday. The wife of Prince William, Charles’ eldest son and heir to the throne, underwent planned surgery on Jan. 16.

The palace didn’t provide further details, but said her condition wasn’t cancerous. The 42-year-old future queen has canceled her public engagements until after Easter.
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Skopje, North Macedonia — North Macedonia’s parliament Sunday approved a caretaker government with a mandate to organize a general election in May. 

The government of the small Balkan country of 1.8 million people will be headed by the country’s first-ever ethnic Albanian prime minister, current parliament speaker Talat Xhaferi, 61. 

The 120-member parliament approved the caretaker government 65-3, with the main opposition, center-right VMRO-DPMNE lawmakers abstaining. 

Despite the abstention, VMRO-DPMNE will join the government with two ministers (interior and labor and social welfare) out of the 20 total ministers, plus three deputy ministers. 

VMRO-DPMNE attacked Xhaferi in a statement. 

“Talat Xhaferi is the man who is known for violating the Constitution, the laws, the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly. … Talat Xhaferi is a man who comes from a party in which all the leaders’ mouths are full of European values, but whose actions only show how they are violated. Hence, one can only expect and think that Talat Xhaferi can only do worse,” the statement said. 

The parliament accepted the resignation of the government led by Dimitar Kovacevski, head of the center-left Social Democratic Union, on Friday and North Macedonia President Stevo Pendarovski called on Xhaferi, a lawmaker with the ethnic Albanian Democratic Union for Integration and speaker since April 2017, to form a new government. 

The practice of forming a caretaker government 100 days before election day was established in 2015 as part of a deal between the main political parties under the mediation of the European Union to end a political crisis at the time. 

The main political parties agreed last month to hold general elections on May 8, two months early. The election will coincide with the second round of the presidential elections. 

VMRO-DPMNE had been pressing for early elections, accusing the government led by the center-left Social Democrats and their junior coalition partners of corruption, nepotism and incompetence. 

Before submitting his resignation, Kovachevski told reporters that “the state will maintain its strategic direction, which is the Western orientation and the strategic partnership with the USA.” 

North Macedonia, together with Albania, began membership talks with the European Union in 2022 and has been a candidate to join the bloc since 2005. The country must meet certain criteria to join the EU, including changing its constitution to recognize a Bulgarian minority — a highly contentious issue because of the overlapping histories and cultures of Bulgaria and North Macedonia. 

Constitutional changes require a two-thirds majority in parliament. 
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Tehran, Iran — The trial of a Swedish EU diplomat wrapped up in Tehran on Sunday, with Iranian prosecutors seeking the maximum penalty for the man accused of spying for Iran’s arch-foe, Israel.    

The prosecutor said that 33-year-old Johan Floderus — who works for the European Union diplomatic service — was charged with “very extensive intelligence cooperation with the Zionist occupation regime,” meaning Israel, according to the judiciary’s Mizan Online website.   

“Given the important nature and adverse effects of the accused’s actions, I demand the maximum penalty,” Mizan reported the prosecutor as saying.   

Floderus was charged with “corruption on earth,” which is one of Iran’s most serious offenses and carries a maximum penalty of death.  

The Swedish national was arrested on April 17, 2022, at Tehran airport on his return to Iran from a trip with friends and has been on trial since December 2023.   

No date has yet been set for the verdict.  

Mizan published photos of Floderus in a prisoner’s uniform accompanied by his two lawyers in a near-empty Tehran courtroom.   

It said the court sessions have ended, but his lawyers have a week to submit their defense.  

Sweden and the EU have repeatedly called for Floderus’ immediate release, arguing that there was “absolutely no reason” for him to be held in Evin prison, where several government opponents are also being held.  

On January 17, Sweden summoned the Iranian charge d’affaires to demand the release of citizens “arbitrarily detained” in Iran.  

Relations between Sweden and Iran have deteriorated since a Swedish court in July 2022, handed down a life sentence to Iranian national Hamid Noury “for grave breaches of international humanitarian law and murder.”  

Noury is a former Iranian prison official. The case related to the killing of at least 5,000 prisoners across Iran to avenge attacks carried out by exiled opposition group the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK) at the end of the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88.  

Governments, human rights groups and families of foreign nationals being held in Iran have accused Tehran of engaging in “hostage diplomacy.”  

Several European nationals are being held in Iran, including four from France.   

Louis Arnaud, a French national, was sentenced in November to five years in prison for propaganda and endangering the security of the country.
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Ukrainian officials say they uncovered a massive defense procurement scheme that saw tens of millions of dollars spent for weapons that never materialized. The discovery follows the downing of a Russian military plane said to have been carrying Ukrainian POWs. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has this story.
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Madrid — Spanish opposition parties demonstrated in Madrid on Sunday in a last gasp effort to stop an amnesty for Catalan separatists over their role in a 2007 secession bid. 

About 45,000 people heeded the call by the Popular Party to gather in the capital’s central Plaza de Espana, according to police estimates. 

The amnesty bill, which was imposed by Catalan parties as a condition for agreeing to support Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s coalition, will be presented Tuesday to the lower house of Spain’s parliament. 

Once approved and enacted, which could take several months, the law would block legal action against hundreds of Catalan activists who are being investigated or have been charged for their role in the attempted declaration of an independent Catalan state in 2007. 

Sunday’s march was attended by PP leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo and former prime minister Mariano Rajoy, as well as president of the Madrid region Isabel Diaz Ayuso. 

The crowd carried numerous Spanish and European flags, as well as banners saying “No to amnesty” and “Sanchez traitor”. 

Silvia Sobral, 64, said she’d come to protest against “this traitor government” that wants to “destroy the Spanish nation”. 

She said the eventual return of Carles Puigdemont, the former head of the Catalan regional government who fled to Belgium after the aborted secession, was “an insult”, unless he was returning “to go to jail”. 

For Diego Garcia, 72, it is “unacceptable” to pardon “people guilty of pure and simple terrorism”. 

The far-right party Vox has also held numerous protests against the amnesty bill, some of which have turned violent, especially in front of the Socialist party’s headquarters. 

Sanchez’s government won a vote of confidence in parliament last November for another four-year term, but the shaky coalition needs the votes of two Catalan parties who insisted on the amnesty law as the price of their support. 
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MELBOURNE, Australia — Jannik Sinner rallied from two sets down to take the Australian Open final from Daniil Medvedev 3-6, 3-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-3 on Sunday and clinch his first Grand Slam title.

The 22-year-old Sinner was playing in a major final for the first time and got there by ending Novak Djokovic’s long domination of the tournament in a semifinal upset.

He’s the first Italian to win the Australian Open title in what could be a generational shift in tennis.

For 2021 U.S. Open champion Medvedev, the loss was his fifth in six major finals. The third-seeded Medvedev set a record with his fourth five-set match of the tournament and time on court at a major in the Open era, his 24 hours and 17 minutes surpassing Carlos Alcaraz’s 23:40 at the 2022 U.S. Open.

Medvedev lost back-to-back finals here to Djokovic in 2021 and to Rafael Nadal — after holding a two-set lead — the following year. He won three five-set matches to reach the championship match this time and had two comebacks from two sets down. Sinner only dropped one set through six rounds — in a third-set tiebreaker against Djokovic — until he lost two straight to Medvedev.

It wasn’t until a break in the sixth game of the fifth set that he really had a full grip on his first Grand Slam title.

Medvedev started like a man who wanted to win quickly, after playing three five-set matches just to reach his sixth Grand Slam final.

In two of those — a second-round win over Emil Ruusuvuori that finished at almost 4 in the morning, and a 4-hour, 18-minute semifinal win over No. 6 Alexander Zverev — he had to come back from two sets down. Nobody had done that on the way to an Australian Open final since Pete Sampras in 1995.

The 27-year-old Russian had spent 20 hours and 33 minutes on court through six rounds. That was almost six hours longer than Sinner took to reach the final.

Sinner didn’t give Djokovic a look at a breakpoint as he ended the 10-time Australian Open champion’s 33-match unbeaten streak at Melbourne Park dating to 2018.

Against Medvedev, though, he was in trouble early. Medvedev broke in the third game and took the first set in 36 minutes.

He had two more service breaks in the fourth and sixth games of the second set but was broken himself at 5-1 trying to serve it out. He was successful next try.

The third set went with serve until the 10th game, when Medvedev was a point from leveling at 5-5 until three forehand errors gave Sinner the set, and the momentum.

He won the fourth set, again with a service break in the 10th game, recovering immediately to win three points after mishitting a forehand so far out that it shocked the Rod Laver Arena crowd.

And so the tournament equaled a Grand Slam Open era record set at the 1983 U.S. Open with a 35th match going to five sets.

In the sixth game of the fifth set, Sinner had triple breakpoint against a fatiguing Medvedev. He missed with his first chance but converted with his next, a forehand winner, for a 4-2 lead. From there, he didn’t give Medvedev another chance.

Medvedev had faced either Djokovic or Rafael Nadal in all five of his previous major finals. He beat Djokovic to win the 2021 U.S. Open title but lost all the others, including the 2021 final in Australia to Djokovic and the 2022 final — after taking the first two sets — against Nadal.

He changed up his usual style, going to the net more regularly in the first two sets and standing closer to the baseline to receive serve than he has done recently.

Medvedev has been saying through the tournament that he has more stamina than he used to and is mentally stronger in the tough five-setters. He needed to be.

Medvedev won his first six matches against Sinner but has now lost four straight.
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Istanbul — Two masked assailants attacked a church in Istanbul during Sunday services, killing one person, Turkish officials said.

According to a statement posted on X by Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya, the armed assailants attacked the Santa Maria Church in the Sariyer district at 11:40 a.m. local time. He did not specify what kind of weapons were used or whether anyone else was wounded.

Yerlikaya condemned the attack and said authorities are working on capturing the assailants. An investigation has been opened.
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