Kurdish MP sings Kurdish song in parliament to protest arrest of musicians

The musicians arrested in Istanbul were beaten during their detention, Mezopotamya said.


Feb 02 2022 

Meral Danış Beştaş, the deputy chairwoman of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), sang a Kurdish song in parliament on Monday to protest the arrest of a group of Kurdish musicians in Istanbul this week and bans on Kurdish music.

Danış Beştaş sang the song entitled ‘Yara Mina Bedewe’ (My Beautiful Wound’), during a news conference at the parliament. The Birgün newspaper was among local media publishing a video of her performance and statement.

“Our language is our existence. Our language is our future. We will always protect our mother language," she said. “You cannot ban any of the ancient languages, you cannot ban the Kurdish language.”

On Saturday, Turkish police detained four street musicians performing the same Kurdish song in Istanbul’s historic Istiklal Avenue, the famous street running off Taksim Square, the Mezopotamya news agency reported.

"I own this square, I own everywhere, I’m the one in charge here and you’re not allowed to make this music,” a policemen told the musicians, according to a video distributed on social media, Mezopotamya said.

Kurdish songs and live performances have faced periodical and ad-hoc bans in Turkey over the past few decades during a war between the Turkish military and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which seeks autonomy for Turkey’s Kurds. In October 2020, the governor of Istanbul banned the Kurdish theatrical play "Beru" shortly before its first performance. It had been performed for three years both in Turkey and abroad.

Danış Beştaş criticised a decree issued by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Jan. 28 barring media from broadcasting content deemed "against the national and spiritual values of society". She characterised the decree as a "circular of censorship” that was against the nation’s Constitution.

"Erdoğan sees himself above the Constitution,” she said, according to news website Bianet. “Even according to a coup Constitution, the president cannot issue a decree about fundamental rights.

"Where did this police officer derive this power? From the one at the Palace. The system of bans starts there. They think they can continue to govern by banning everything they don't want in the country,” Danış Beştaş said.

The musicians arrested in Istanbul were beaten during their detention, Mezopotamya said.

POLITICAL PRISONER

Jailed Kurdish politician ‘criminally responsible’ despite dementia


Ahval
Feb 17 2022 

Kurdish politician Aysel Tuğluk, who has been diagnosed with dementia while behind bars in Turkey since 2016, can still be held criminally responsible, the Turkish Forensic Science Institute (ATK) found in a report this week.

Last month, over 40 national and international human rights organisations and bar associations called on the United Nations to press for Tuğluk’s release, saying the Turkish authorities were “failing to act in accordance with the law and international standards’’.

Lawyers of Tuğluk, a former co-chair and deputy for the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), the second-largest opposition group in Turkey’s parliament, have submitted several appeals for her release on health grounds after she was diagnosed with dementia and early-stage Alzheimer’s in March 2021.

Following the most recent appeal, Tuğluk was transferred to the ATK for consultations for a maximum duration of 15 days. Three days later, the ATK completed its assessment and issued a 25-page report. She was returned to the Kandıra Prison in İzmit on Feb. 5.

In the first 15 pages of the report, the ATK detailed accusations against Tuğluk instead of medical findings, local media including the Mezopotamya news agency reported on Wednesday. In the remaining pages, Tuğluk’s previous consultations and medical reports were included.

The forensic institute diagnosed Tuğluk with mild cognitive impairment and said she could remain in prison in her condition.

“No medical findings or documents were encountered to signify that (Tuğluk) had any mental disorder to the extent that would affect her criminal responsibility in the period pertaining to the criminal acts,” the ATK said in its report, according to Mezopotamya. “(Tuğluk) has full criminal responsibility in our opinion and assessment.”

The politician was arrested in December 2016 shortly following the detention of other co-chairs and several deputies of the HDP. Tuğluk faced terrorism charges for speeches she made in her capacity of co-chair of the Democratic Society Congress (DTK), a majority-Kurdish grassroots organisation. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Tuğluk’s family believes her condition was triggered by traumatic events since her arrest, including events surrounding the death of her mother in 2017. Far-right groups attacked the funeral and her family was forced to unearth the mother’s body to be buried elsewhere.

Tuğluk has been suffering from memory loss and anomic aphasia, according to a report issued by a public hospital in the northwestern İzmit province on March 8, 2021. The veteran Kurdish politician was also having problems completing her daily routines, it said. Tuğluk scored 11 points in a dementia test where 25 points indicated normal cognitive capacity and below 10 points indicated severe dementia.

In a follow up report by a public research hospital on March 24, Tuğluk was diagnosed with blood pressure issues. The second report included a note by her doctors advising care due to drug interactions with her dementia medication.

Another report issued in April detailed Tuğluk’s cognitive decline, saying she had significant deterioration in her learning and memory function, while retaining most of her recorded memory.

On June 8, a primary care physician at the prison infirmary entered a diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer into the national healthcare tracking system

In July, the research hospital issued another report saying Tuğluk’s condition was chronic and degenerative, that she was unfit to see out her daily routine independently, and that she could not receive the care she needed in prison.

However, the ATK said in a report dated September 2021 that Tuğluk had “attempted to make herself look worse than she was”.

“Psychopathology to the extent to require a delay to execution of sentencing was not detected,” the ATK said. Tuğluk’s spatial orientation was sufficient while her temporal orientation was “partially sufficient”, it said.

A public hospital examined Tuğluk in December last year and found further deterioration in her condition, according to a report it published.

Tuğluk had lost significant details of her personal life, her recorded memory had been affected, her ability to make calculations was diminished and her speech patterns had started to show deteriorations in content and flow, the hospital said.

HDP MPs accuse Turkey of exacerbating ISIS threat against Yazidis in Sinjar

"Turkey is the country from which ISIS gets and gathers strength and logistics the most" 


Feb 17 2022 
http://ahval.co/en-136787

Members of parliament for the pro-Kurdish Democratic Peoples’ Party (HDP) have accused Turkey of exacerbating the threats faced by the Yazidi minority in northern Iraq’s Sinjar province, Bianet reported on Thursday.

A delegation of HDP MPs visited Sinjar earlier this month following an escalation in Turkish airstrikes in the region. On Feb 2., Turkish fighter jets and drones struck positions throughout Sinjar, which local media reports described as the most extensive bombardment since 2017.

Turkey has repeatedly targeted members of the Sinjar Resistance Units (YBŞ), accusing the local Yazidi militia of close ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The PKK has been partner to an internal conflict with the Turkish state since the 1980s and is listed as a terrorist organisation by the European Union and the United States.

Sinjar, the traditional homeland of the Yazidis, a religious and ethnic minority some of whom consider themselves Kurdish, came under siege by the Islamic State (ISIS) in August 2014, leaving thousands trapped for months.

The siege was eventually broken the following December by Kurdish forces including PKK fighters. ISIS crimes against the Yazidis have since been designated by the United Nations as a genocide.

Speaking to the press after the delegation to Sinjar, HDP MP Murat Çepni said: “The most striking fact that we encountered there was that Turkey's fight against ISIS is a big lie and that the international community falls short in the face of this critical matter," according to Bianet.

"Turkey is the country from which ISIS gets and gathers strength and logistics the most," he said.

“On the one side, Yazidi try to live under ISIS threat; on the other side, they are subjected to Turkey's bombardments,” he added.

The MPs called for a ban on military aircraft and drones from operating over Sinjar and requested more international support for the region.

Renewed ISIS attacks had been so far met with silence, the MPs said.

TWENTY YEARS OF TYRANNY 

Unhappiness doubled in Turkey during AKP era, according to official statistics


Ahval
Feb 17 2022 

The rate of unhappiness in Turkey has more than doubled under nearly two decades of Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, according to official statistics published on Thursday.

A survey by state-run Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) showed 16.6 percent of people in the country reported being unhappy in 2021.

The figure is up from 9.3 percent in 2003, when TÜİK began collecting the data, a year after the AKP came to power.

The overall rate of happiness also declined in the same time period. In 2021, 49.3 percent of people said they were generally happy, down from 59.6 percent in 2003.

Unhappiness has been steadily growing in Turkey since 2016, coinciding with the failed military coup against the AKP government earlier in the year.

A subsequent government-led purge saw hundreds of thousands of people jailed, removed from their jobs, or otherwise persecuted over alleged links to religious cleric Fethullah Gülen, whose followers are widely believed to have led the coup attempt.

The crackdown quickly went on to include other government opponents, including figures such as Kurdish political leader Selahattin Demirtaş and liberal philanthropist Osman Kavala, both of whom remain in prison.

It has also been a turbulent period for the Turkish economy, which is currently experiencing its second currency crisis since 2018. The Turkish lira lost 44 percent of its value against the dollar last year amid President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s insistence that the central bank keep interest rates low.

Meanwhile, Inflation surged to nearly 50 percent in January, putting households under growing financial pressure.

Over 70 pct of Turkey's Generation Z favours living abroad - survey

Last Updated On: Feb 16 2022 

http://ahval.co/en-136672

Over 70 percent of Turkey’s population aged 18-25 said they would prefer to live abroad if given the opportunity, according to a new survey by German political foundation Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS).

Of the participants in the survey, based on in-person interviews with over 3,200 youth in 28 Turkish provinces between May-September 2021, 62.8 percent said they failed to see a "good future" for the country, while 35.2 percent said they were “completely hopeless” about Turkey.

The survey arrives amid an economic crisis in Turkey, which has forced citizens to grapple with the country’s highest inflation rate in almost two-decades. Turkey is struggling with a volatile lira, which lost 44 percent of its value last year, making it by far the worst performer in emerging markets.

Meanwhile, the country’s youth unemployment rate rose by 1.7 percentage points in January to 22.3 percent, according to official data.

Over 82.9 percent of respondents said that they believed wealth and income were not distributed equally in Turkey while 87.3 percent said the country’s unemployment rate of 11.2 according to official records was too high.

Of those surveyed, 25.8 designated themselves as having “unhappy’’ lives, while 55.2 percent of respondents said they were “neither happy nor unhappy” with their lives.

Speaking on Turkey’s government, 62.5 percent respondents said they were unhappy with how Turkey was being ruled, while 5.9 percent said that they were happy with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government.

Erdoğan has been in power for almost two decades, making him the only leader of Turkey the respondents have witnessed to date.

When asked who they would vote for if a general elections were held between May and September of this year, the main opposition Republican People’s Party received the lion’s share of support with 23.9 percent, followed by 4.9 percent for opposition centre-right Good Party, 4.7 percent for the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party and 4.4 percent for AKP’s far-right ally, the Nationalist Movement Party.

Meanwhile, 44.7 percent of those surveyed did not answer the election question, citing that they were either “undecided,” “would not cast a vote,” or “did not want to answer the question.’’

The 18-25 demographic, known as Generation Z, comprises seven million of Turkey’s population, whose majority will experience their first election as voters in the next polls scheduled for 2023.

SEND THE BILL TO TEXAS
Oklahoma abortion providers see huge influx of Texas women

Abortion providers in Oklahoma say they're continuing to see a dramatic increase in women coming from Texas who want to terminate their pregnancies

By SEAN MURPHY Associated Press
15 February 2022

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Two abortion providers in Oklahoma said Tuesday that they’re still seeing a massive influx of women from Texas who want to terminate their pregnancies after Texas last year passed the most restrictive anti-abortion law in the U.S. in decades.

Officials with Trust Women and Planned Parenthood Great Plains, which both operate abortion clinics in Oklahoma City, said some women from Oklahoma are being forced to seek abortion services in other states because of two-week wait times for services in Oklahoma.


“Our phones have not stopped ringing in the last six months," said Rebecca Tong, co-executive director of Trust Women. “We're being forced to turn people away in desperate situations."

Tong said the clinic has added an additional physician and the clinic is open more days per week but it still has longer wait times, which leads to longer pregnancies, more complications and an increased likelihood that a woman will have to receive a surgical procedure instead of a medication-induced abortion.

Statistics released last week by the Texas Health and Human Services Commission show abortions in Texas fell by 60% in the first month after the new law took effect that bans the procedure once cardiac activity is detected, usually around six weeks of pregnancy, without exceptions in cases of rape or incest.

Tong said the company’s Oklahoma City clinic went from seeing 12 Texas patients in August to 130 in September after the Texas law passed. She said their clinic in Kansas saw similar increases.

Emily Wales, interim president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains Votes, said Planned Parenthood went from seeing about 50 patients from Texas at their clinics in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma in the fall of 2020 to more than 1,000 last year.

Tong, Wales and other abortion rights advocates say they're particularly concerned the Oklahoma Legislature intends to follow Texas' lead and pass a similar bill or even more onerous restrictions that could bring an end to abortion services in Oklahoma altogether.

Oklahoma lawmakers have introduced more than a dozen bills this year to further restrict or prohibit abortions in Oklahoma, including measures that make it a felony crime to perform or receive an abortion.

Meanwhile, hundreds of anti-abortion activists are expected to descend on the Oklahoma Capitol on Wednesday for the annual Rose Day where they present red roses meant to signify the lives of the unborn and encourage the passage of anti-abortion bills.

Tony Lauinger, chairman of Oklahomans for Life and a longtime anti-abortion activist in Oklahoma, said that while he's “greatly concerned" at the increase in the number of abortions being performed in Oklahoma, he's also optimistic that the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a legal challenge that could lead to the historic Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion to be overturned or limited.

“It’s a great concern to us if women from anywhere go to an abortion facility," Lauinger said. “When a pregnant woman goes into an abortion facility, two human beings enter and one leaves. Whether the women are from Texas, Oklahoma or elsewhere, that’s a tragedy in our view every time it occurs."

Businessman close to Maduro was DEA informant, records show
By JOSHUA GOODMAN

In this Sept. 9, 2021 file photo, pedestrians walk near a poster of Alex Saab that reads in Spanish "Free Alex Saab . They haven't been able to bend him," in Caracas, Venezuela. Newly unsealed court records show that the Colombian businessman linked to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was secretly signed up by the D.E.A. as a cooperating source in 2018 and gave agents information about bribes he paid to Venezuelan officials. However, he was deactivated as a source after failing to meet a deadline to surrender himself and was indicted in Miami federal court on charges of siphoning millions from state contracts. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, File)


MIAMI (AP) — A businessman described as the main conduit for corruption in Venezuela was secretly signed up by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration as a source in 2018, revealing information about bribes he paid to top officials in President Nicolás Maduro’s socialist government.

As part of his multi-year cooperation, Alex Saab also forfeited millions of dollars in illegal proceeds he admitted to earning from corrupt state contracts, new records in a closely-watched criminal case show. But his contact with U.S. law enforcement ended abruptly after he missed a May 30, 2019 deadline to surrender to or face criminal charges, according to prosecutors.

The stunning revelation was made public following a heated closed door hearing Wednesday in Miami federal court in which an attorney for Saab argued his family in Venezuela could be jailed or physically harmed by Maduro’s government if his interactions with U.S. law enforcement became known.

“They are basically under the thumb of the government,” attorney Neil Schuster argued in the hearing, a transcript of which was later unsealed by Judge Robert Scola. “If the Venezuelan government finds out the extent of what this individual has provided, I have no doubt that there will be retaliation against his wife and his children.”

U.S. officials have presented Saab as a close associate of Maduro, someone who reaped huge windfall profits from dodgy contracts to import food while millions in the South American nation starved. The Maduro government considers him a diplomat who was kidnapped during a refueling stop while on a humanitarian mission to Iran made more urgent by U.S. sanctions.

“Saab was playing with fire,” said Gerard Reyes, a Miami-based author of a recent book on Saab, including his past dealings with U.S. officials. “He believed that he could work as a snitch for the prosecution and at the same time pretend he was being persecuted by Yankee imperialism, without any consequences. But in the end he got burned.”

The Associated Press in November reported that Saab has held several meetings with U.S. law enforcement in his native Colombia as well as Europe. As part of his cooperation, he wired three payments to a DEA-controlled account containing nearly $10 million obtained through corruption.

However, he was deactivated as a source after failing to surrender as had been previously agreed during meetings in which he was represented by U.S. and Colombian attorneys. Two months later, he was sanctioned by the Trump administration and indicted in Miami federal court on charges of siphoning millions from state contracts to build affordable housing for Venezuela’s government.

Saab, shackled and wearing a beige jumpsuit, attended Wednesday’s hearing. The public was briefly barred from the courtroom as the two sides haggled over whether or not to make public two documents filed by prosecutors nearly a year ago, while Saab was fighting extradition from Cape Verde, detailing his past cooperation..

With the courtroom sealed, Schuster asked for Saab to be released on bond in light of his four years of assistance to the U.S. government — cooperation that other attorneys for Saab have always denied.

Judge Scola immediately rejected the idea, citing Saab’s past attempts to evade extradition, according to the transcript of the closed proceedings.

“So you are going to have all this evidence that this guy is a flight risk, he’s involved in this humongous crime, he’s tried it, he fought extradition, and the judge inexplicably grants him a bond?” Scola said.

Prosecutors a year ago had sought to keep secret those meetings with U.S. law enforcement out of concern for Saab’s safety and that of his family, some of whom are still in Venezuela.

But they downplayed any such dangers on Wednesday, saying Saab’s legal team hadn’t taken them up on an offer to assist his family in leaving Venezuela. Scola agreed, saying the public’s right to access criminal proceedings outweighs any concerns about his family’s safety.

The details of Saab’s outreach to U.S. law enforcement surfaced in a related case involving a University of Miami professor who served as an intermediary for payments Saab was making to his U.S. attorneys.

Another Saab attorney, who is fighting to get Saab’s status as a Venezuelan diplomat recognized by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta, vehemently rejected claims that the businessman had been cooperating with U.S. investigators.

New York-based David Rivkin, who was not present in court Wednesday, said the sole purpose of Saab’s meetings with U.S. law enforcement officials was to clear his name and were undertaken with the “full knowledge and support” of Maduro’s government. He said the release of the document, at the request of the Department of Justice, is no more than an attempt to harm Venezuela’s interests, its relationship with Saab, and illustrates the weakness of the government’s case.

“Alex Saab remains a loyal citizen and diplomat of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and will never do anything to harm the interests of the country and people that have given him so much,” Rivkin said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Saab’s Italian-born wife, Camilla Fabri, said on social media that the U.S. was “brazenly lying, like it did with Russia and Iraq” and that her husband would never cause harm to Venezuela.

As part of U.S. criminal investigations, it’s common for targets to meet with U.S. law enforcement agents to sniff out information about the probe and explore a possible plea deal.

However, the documents unsealed Wednesday described Saab’s cooperation as “proactive” and more extensive and meaningful than previously believed.

According to prosecutors, the first debriefing with agents from the DEA and Federal Bureau of Investigation took place in Colombia’s capital of Bogota over two days in August 2016. Other meetings ensued and in 2018 he was signed up as a cooperating source after stating to agents that he had paid bribes to Venezuelan officials, none of whom have been named in the court records.

At the last meeting, in Europe in April 2019, he was warned that if he didn’t surrender by the May deadline he would be sanctioned and criminally charged, something that indeed happened in July 2019.

___

Joshua Goodman on Twitter: @APJoshGoodman

Crime, homelessness frame race for mayor of Los Angeles

By MICHAEL R. BLOOD

1 of 7

 A trashed punching bag is left at a homeless encampment on the side of the CA-101 highway in Echo Park neighborhood in Los Angeles Tuesday, May 11, 2021. From homelessness to rising crime, Los Angeles residents are unhappy and frustrated. The campaign for the city's next mayor will test if voters in the liberal-minded city could embrace a new mayor with a tough approach to crime and sprawling homeless encampments that have spread into virtually every neighborhood. 

(AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes,File)


LOS ANGELES (AP) — The contest to become the next mayor of Los Angeles can be distilled into a single question with no easy answer: Who can fix this mess?

Tourists still flock to Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, the palm trees soar along Sunset Boulevard, and the Los Angeles Rams are Super Bowl champions. But in many ways the nation’s second most populous city feels diminished.

An out-of-control homeless crisis plays out on the streets daily, sometimes with deadly consequences. A rising crime rate — spotlighted by home invasions and smash-and-grab thefts at luxury stores — has contributed to a creeping sense of civic disorder. Miles of streets and sidewalks are crumbling.

Sexual harassment and corruption scandals have tainted City Hall. Two years after the start of the pandemic, many yearn for a return to normalcy that hasn’t come. Tellingly, a region once associated with stratospheric growth is losing population, in part from frustrated residents deciding a brighter future is somewhere else.
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As voters in the city of 4 million people begin to assess a large, diverse cast of candidates to replace beleaguered two-term Democratic Mayor Eric Garcetti, at issue is whether LA might break from its liberal moorings and embrace a candidate with a strong emphasis on public safety. New York City has similar conditions, and last fall voters elected former police Capt. Eric Adams as their mayor.

What happens in New York, LA and other big cities can foreshadow the direction of national Democratic politics.

“These big cities are all Democratic strongholds, but they’re not monolithic,” said Raphael Sonenshein, executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at California State University, Los Angeles. “At least in theory, this year has some open doors for candidates who are the most critical of the political structure and system.”

Last week was the deadline for candidates to enter the race. The primary is June 7. If no candidate wins a majority — which appears likely with more than two dozen people in the race — a runoff would be held in November between the top two finishers.

For now, the officially nonpartisan race is a scrum with no dominant candidate, though the leading contenders all are Democrats.

In a different year, the overwhelming favorite might be U.S. Rep. Karen Bass, a fixture in the party’s progressive wing who was on President Joe Biden’s short list when he was considering a vice presidential pick. Her election would be groundbreaking: She hopes to become the city’s first female and second Black mayor, after Tom Bradley, who held the post from 1973 to 1993.

Bass needs to build support beyond her congressional district. Her recently announced plans to get more police on the streets was a recognition of the unsteady times.

The entry into the race last week of billionaire Rick Caruso, a business-friendly, political centrist known for building high-end shopping malls, reordered the contest and will give voters a starkly different choice. With the ability to invest tens of millions of dollars of his own money into his campaign, the one-time Republican who recently registered as a Democrat is running as an outsider who wants to add 1,500 police officers. He faults those holding office for allowing the city to go badly off track.

But most voters know little about Caruso, and inevitable challenges come with being a white billionaire with a nine-bedroom mega-yacht in a diverse city with a yawning gap between rich and poor. Forbes magazine estimates his wealth at $4.3 billion. His campaign website introduces him as the grandson of Italian immigrants and a philanthropist with deep community roots who has served on several government commissions, including as president of the city’s Police Commission.

Residents “are scared,” Caruso said in a brief interview with The Associated Press. “They’re fed up. Can you imagine running a small business and you’re worried about crime, and you also have a (homeless) encampment in front of your business?”

Other candidates among a leading group include city Councilman Joe Buscaino, a former policeman pushing for an expanded police department; Councilman Kevin de Leon, a former state Senate leader and the most prominent Latino on the ballot in a city that is about half Hispanic; and City Attorney Mike Feuer, who has made gun violence a priority.

The widespread anxiety over unsafe streets shares some similarity to 1993, when LA voters turned to Republican Richard Riordan to lead the city in the aftermath of the deadly 1992 riots that erupted after four white police officers were acquitted of assault in the beating of Black motorist Rodney King. It also has parallels to New York City in the early 1990s, when the perception that crime was out of control helped usher in Republican Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Los Angeles, however, is much changed from Riordan’s days. It’s more Latino, less white and more solidly Democratic — Republicans comprise only about 13% of voters, while Democrats account for nearly 60%, with most of the remainder independents who lean Democratic.

Homelessness is the most pressing issue. An estimated 41,000 people live on city streets, a figure roughly equal to the population of North Miami Beach, Florida.

In recent weeks homeless men with long arrest records were implicated in two killings — a 70-year-old nurse died after being punched in an unprovoked attack at a bus stop and a 24-year old graduate student was stabbed to death while working alone in a store. Advocates worried public outrage over the crimes would leave a vulnerable population more endangered, noting people living on the streets are far more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators.

What’s needed is permanent housing that is not yet available, paired with health services for those with mental illness or chronic drug addiction, said John Maceri of the People Concern, one of L.A.’s largest nonprofits serving the homeless.

Also lacking: a system to get those units built quickly, and with accountability. “People who are in temporary housing are still homeless,” Maceri said.

Proposals to expand police numbers already are seeing resistance from activists who want funding reduced for the Los Angeles Police Department.

To urbanist Joel Kotkin, a presidential fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University who lived in LA for four decades, one of the long-running problems is the erosion of the middle class. It flourished for many years, fortified by unionized jobs in aerospace and entertainment.

“People came here, they bought a house, they raised a family, kids went to public schools,” he said.

Many of those jobs are now gone, and what’s left is a so-called a barbell economy of well-to-do residents on one end and the working class on the other.

“That whole middle sector of Los Angeles, which really was the great thing about L.A., that’s disappeared,” Kotkin said.

Fear runs through Afghanistan’s ‘hazardous’ media landscape

By KATHY GANNON

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Afghan journalist Banafsha Binesh speaks during an interview with the Associated Press, at TOLO TV newsroom in Kabul, Afghanistan, Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2022. Binesh fear haunts every step when she leaves her home each morning for the newsroom at Afghanistan's largest television station in the Afghan capital Kabul. A December survey jointly carried out by Reporters Without Borders and the Afghan Independent Journalist Association, reported "a total of 231 media outlets have had to close and more than 6,400 journalists have lost their jobs", since the Taliban's August arrival in the Afghan capital. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Fear accompanies reporter Banafsha Binesh from the moment she leaves her Kabul home each morning for the newsroom at Afghanistan’s largest television station.

It starts with the Taliban fighters, who roam the streets of the capital with weapons slung over their shoulders. Binesh, 27, says she is frightened by their reputation of harshness toward women, rather than any unsavory encounter.

Dread and uncertainty mount with every new report of a fellow journalist having been detained, interrogated or beaten by Taliban fighters.

“Working is full of stress,” said Binesh, who works for TOLO-TV.

Since taking power six months ago, the country’s new rulers have also issued directives requiring journalists to keep Islamic principles in mind and work for the good of the nation — rules that would seem aimed at quashing independent reporting.

Bilal Karimi, a deputy spokesman for the Culture and Information Ministry, said criticism is tolerated, but must be constructive.

He blamed attacks on journalists — often while they cover women’s protests, explosions, and other news — on over-zealous Taliban. Other arrests of journalists were not linked to their work, he claimed.

Steven Butler from the Committee to Protect Journalists said it’s not clear yet if attacks on journalists are systematic or “just semi-random events initiated by some Taliban official who has a grudge.”

“I would describe the landscape as full of hazards that are not fully predictable,” said Butler, the Asia program director at CPJ. “Journalists are being selectively picked up, interrogated about their coverage, beaten, and then released after hours or days.”

Most recently, two journalists working for the U.N. refugee agency were held for six days and released last week after the U.N. raised alarms. The Taliban said they released the journalists after confirming their identities.

Butler expressed concerns that Taliban intelligence officials are becoming more “hands-on” and have increasingly been implicated in arrests and disappearances.

In one trend-bucking development, TOLO now has more female than male journalists, both in the newsroom and out on the streets.

TOLO news director Khpolwak Sapai said he made a point of hiring women after nearly 90% of the company’s employees fled or were evacuated in the first days of the Taliban takeover.

He said female staffers have not been threatened by the Taliban authorities but have at times been denied access because of their gender.

In one case, a TOLO reporter was barred from a briefing by the acting minister of mines and petroleum when he found out the station had sent a woman to the event.

Sapai said TOLO promptly does stories on such incidents.

The ranks of journalists in Afghanistan thinned dramatically during the chaotic days of the Taliban takeover in August. Tens of thousands of Afghans fled or were evacuated by foreign governments and organizations.

A December survey by Reporters Without Borders and the Afghan Independent Journalist Association found that 231 out of 543 media outlets had closed, while more than 6,400 journalists lost their jobs after the Taliban takeover. The outlets closed for lack of funds or because journalists had left the country, according to the report.

During their previous rule in the late 1990s, the Taliban had no opposition and banned most television, radio and newspapers. Foreign news organizations were able to operate at that time, along with some local outlets.

Faisal Mudaris, a broadcast journalist, blogger and YouTube personality, spent eight days in Taliban custody, where he said he was beaten and threatened.

Mudaris is from the restive Panjshir Valley, the only holdout against Taliban rule during their first weeks in power. Mudaris fears his ethnicity as a Panjshiri, not his journalism, landed him in a Taliban lockup. He believes he remains at risk, fearing that no one can hold the Taliban accountable.

Journalists from other ethnic minorities, including the Hazaras who have long faced discrimination from successive governments, also worry. In the first months after the Taliban takeover, several journalists of a small outlet called Etilaat Roz were arrested and beaten. Both were Hazaras.

Karimi denies anyone is targeted because of their ethnicity and promises investigations will be carried out against offending Taliban. CPJ’s Butler said his advocacy group has no way to measure attacks based on ethnicity.

Still, there appears to be some room for critical reporting under the Taliban. For example, TOLO repeatedly aired a clip of Taliban fighters beating a former Afghan soldier.

Within days, top Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhunzada warned Taliban fighters against excesses, saying they would be punished. He reiterated a promise of amnesty for former soldiers.

“Did the news story bring about a change? I want to think it contributed to it,” said Sapai, the TOLO news director.

Sapai said views among the Taliban range from those who cling to the strict views of the past, to those who want a more open society that embraces education and work for all — including girls and women.

He believes domestic and external pressures on the Taliban should not be underestimated. “Most of the Taliban leadership accept that Afghanistan and the world is different now and it’s hard to turn back the clock but still the differences exist among them,” he said.

It’s the uncertainty about which view will prevail that has journalists worried.

“The fear that we have is for the day in the future when the Taliban will prevent us from the work that we do,” said TOLO reporter Asma Saeen, 22. “This is my big fear and my constant anxiety.”

She has no recollection of the harsh Taliban rule of the 1990s and said she has been able to work unhindered. Yet she resents the many restrictions imposed on girls and women, including banning teen-age girls from returning to school, at least for now, and many women not being allowed to return to their jobs.

Both Saeen and Binesh want to leave Afghanistan, saying they long for the freedoms they enjoyed before the Taliban swept to power.

“We were not expecting that after 20 years of democracy to face these many restrictions,” said Binesh. “I am ready to go.”

THINKS FOR ITSELF

Tesla faces another US investigation: unexpected braking

By TOM KRISHER

FILE - The logo for the Tesla Supercharger station is seen in Buford, Ga, April 22, 2021,. Tesla is recalling nearly 579,000 vehicles in the U.S. because sounds played over an external speaker can obscure audible warnings for pedestrians. The recall is the fourth made public in the last two weeks as U.S. safety regulators increase scrutiny of the nation’s largest electric vehicle maker. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson, File)


DETROIT (AP) — U.S. auto safety regulators have launched another investigation of Tesla, this time tied to complaints that its cars can stop on roads for no apparent reason.

The government says it has 354 complaints from owners during the past nine months about “phantom braking” in Tesla Models 3 and Y. The probe covers an estimated 416,000 vehicles from the 2021 and 2022 model years.

No crashes or injuries were reported.

The vehicles are equipped with partially automated driver-assist features such as adaptive cruise control and “Autopilot,” which allows them to automatically brake and steer within their lanes.

Documents posted Thursday by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration say the vehicles can unexpectedly brake at highway speeds.

“Complainants report that the rapid deceleration can occur without warning, and often repeatedly during a single drive cycle,” the agency says.

Many owners in the complaints say they feared a rear-end crash on a freeway.

The probe is another in a string of enforcement efforts by the agency that include Autopilot and “Full Self-Driving” software. Despite their names, neither feature can drive the vehicles without people supervising.

Messages were left Thursday seeking comment from Tesla.

It’s the fourth formal investigation of the Texas automaker in the past three years, and NHTSA is supervising 15 Tesla recalls since January of 2021. In addition, the agency has sent investigators to at least 33 crashes involving Teslas using driver-assist systems since 2016 in which 11 people were killed.

In one of the complaints, a Tesla owner from Austin, Texas, reported that a Model Y on Autopilot brakes repeatedly for no reason on two-lane roads and freeways.

“The phantom braking varies from a minor throttle response to decrease speed to full emergency braking that drastically reduces the speed at a rapid pace, resulting in unsafe driving conditions for occupants of my vehicle as well as those who might be following behind me,” the owner wrote in a complaint filed Feb. 2. People who file complaints are not identified in NHTSA’s public database.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been fighting with U.S. and California government agencies for years, sparring with NHTSA and most notably with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Early Thursday, lawyers for Musk sent a letter to a federal judge in Manhattan accusing the SEC of harassing him with investigations and subpoenas over his Twitter posts. In 2018, Musk and Tesla each agreed to pay $20 million in civil fines over Musk’s tweets about having the money to take the company private at $420 per share. The funding was far from secured and the company remains public. The settlement specified governance changes, including Musk’s ouster as board chairman, as well approval of Musk’s tweets.

The letter from attorney Alex Spiro accuses the SEC of trying to “muzzle” Musk, largely because he’s an outspoken government critic. “The SEC’s outsized efforts seem calculated to chill his exercise of First Amendment rights rather than to enforce generally applicable laws in an even-handed fashion,” the letter states.

Shapiro questions why the SEC hasn’t distributed the $40 million in fines to Tesla shareholders more than three years after the settlement.

A message was left Thursday seeking comment from the SEC.

Just last week, NHTSA made Tesla recall nearly 579,000 vehicles in the U.S. because a “Boombox” function can play sounds over an external speaker and obscure audible warnings for pedestrians of an approaching vehicle. Tesla CEO Elon Musk, when asked on Twitter why the company agreed to the recall, responded: “The fun police made us do it (sigh).”

Michael Brooks, acting executive director of the nonprofit Center for Auto Safety, said it’s encouraging to see NHTSA’s enforcement actions “after years of turning the other way,” with Tesla. But he said the company keeps releasing software onto U.S. roads that isn’t tested to make sure it’s safe. “A piecemeal investigative approach to each problem that raises its head does not address the larger issue in Tesla’s safety culture — the company’s continued willingness to beta test its technology on the American public while misrepresenting the capabilities of its vehicles,” Brooks wrote in an email Thursday.

The Washington Post reported about a surge in phantom braking complaints from Tesla owners on Feb. 2.

Other recent recalls by Tesla were for “Full Self-Driving” equipped vehicles that were programmed to run stop signs at slow speeds, heating systems that don’t clear windshields quickly enough, seat belt chimes that don’t sound to warn drivers who aren’t buckled up, and to fix a feature that allows movies to play on touch screens while cars are being driven. Those issues were to be fixed with online software updates.

In August, NHTSA announced a probe of Teslas on Autopilot failing to stop for emergency vehicles parked on roadways. That investigation covers a dozen crashes that killed one person and injured 17 others.

Thursday’s investigation comes after Tesla recalled nearly 12,000 vehicles back in October for a similar phantom braking problem. The company sent out an online software update to fix a glitch with its more sophisticated “Full Self-Driving” software.

Tesla did a software update in late September that was intended to improve detection of emergency vehicle lights in low-light conditions.

Selected Tesla drivers have been beta testing the “Full Self-Driving” software on public roads. NHTSA also has asked the company for information about the testing, including a Tesla requirement that testers not disclose information.

With fast-track passports, Russia extends clout in Ukraine

By DASHA LITVINOVA and YURAS KARMANAU

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FILE - People show their Russian passports sitting on a a bus to Russia at a bus stop in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, Saturday, June 27, 2020, before travelling to vote on constitutional amendments in the neighboring Rostov region in Russia. Since 2019, some 720,000 residents of areas in eastern Ukraine controlled by Russia-backed rebels have received Russian passports in a fast-track procedure widely seen as an attempt to underscore Russia’s influence in the region. (AP Photo/Alexei Alexandrov, File)

MOSCOW (AP) — Ivan Malyuta, a resident of Donetsk, a city in eastern Ukraine controlled by Moscow-backed separatists, applied for Russian citizenship this month and said he, his wife and three children will soon be getting Russian passports.

“I want to be a citizen of the Russian Federation. We are moving towards this, aren’t we?” he said at a Donetsk migration service office.

Malyuta and his family will join more than 720,000 residents of rebel-held areas in eastern Ukraine who have received Russian citizenship and passports in a fast-track procedure widely seen as an attempt to underscore Russia’s influence in the region.

Russia threw its weight behind a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine in 2014, shortly after annexing Crimea in response to a popular uprising in Kyiv ousting a Kremlin-friendly president.

Moscow has denied deploying troops or weapons to the rebel-held areas, with government officials repeatedly stressing that Russia is not a party to the conflict, which has killed over 14,000 people.

Besides the quick path to citizenship, Russia has offered residents of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk republics membership in the Kremlin’s ruling party and other perks, such as its COVID-19 vaccines or trade preferences for local manufacturers.

Ukraine has been appalled by the efforts amid rising tensions and fears of a new invasion. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba urged the European Union last week to impose sanctions on Russia for “its illegal mass issuing of Russian passports to Ukrainian citizens.”

On Tuesday, Russian lawmakers appealed to President Vladimir Putin to recognize the independence of the two self-proclaimed republics, eliciting even more outrage in Kyiv, with both the Foreign Ministry and parliament releasing statements condemning the move.

Putin hasn’t said how he will act on the request, but signaled he wasn’t inclined to support the idea, which would violate a 2015 agreement about their status.

Political analysts agree the Kremlin is unlikely to back independence for Donetsk and Luhansk any time soon, but will continue to reap political benefits from its involvement in eastern Ukraine.

“It’s a form of keeping the pressure on Kyiv, destabilizing it and hindering Ukraine’s movement towards European values, towards NATO,” said Moscow-based political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin.

Putin signed a decree simplifying the procedure for obtaining Russian citizenship for residents of Donetsk and Luhansk in April 2019 – the day after Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s presidential victory was officially proclaimed.

Since then, more than 720,000 residents of the rebel-held areas – about 18% of the population – have received Russian passports.

Olga Matvienko, an official of the migration service in Donetsk, told The Associated Press the number of people applying for Russian passports has increased in recent weeks as tensions around Ukraine soared. She said the procedure has been “extremely simplified,” and takes just one to three months.

Donetsk residents who have applied say having Russian citizenship gives them a sense of protection from a powerful neighboring state.

“Relatives (in Russia) tell us that Putin won’t abandon us and everything will be fine,” said 62-year-old retiree Nelya Dzyuba.

Many also say it will allow them to travel to Russia and enjoy benefits Russian citizens are entitled to, such as free health care. For that, however, a passport holder must go through additional red tape, though Putin last month tasked the government with making access to benefits easier.

Ukrainian officials have charged that handing Russian passports to residents of the rebel-held areas violates a 2015 peace deal for eastern Ukraine brokered by France and Germany, a claim Moscow denies.

The deal, widely known as the Minsk agreements, put a stop to large-scale hostilities, but failed to bring about a political settlement of the conflict. It envisioned Donetsk and Luhansk as part of Ukraine, but with broad autonomy from Kyiv, which has said that implementing the agreements would hurt Ukraine. The Kremlin, on the other hand, has insisted the Minsk deal is the only way to settle the conflict, and has repeatedly accused Ukraine of sabotaging its implementation.

Kuleba, the Ukrainian foreign minister, said last week that issuing Russian passports to residents of rebel-held areas on a mass scale violates the Minsk agreements.

In an interview with the AP, Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, echoed his sentiment. “They have issued a crazy amount of Russian passports,” he said, adding that “they’re involving these people in their political structure.”

Donetsk and Luhansk residents with Russian passports were allowed to vote in last year’s Russian parliamentary elections and in the 2020 plebiscite on constitutional reform that permits Putin to run for two additional terms. They were bussed into the neighboring Rostov region in Russia to cast their ballots.

In December, the Kremlin’s ruling United Russia party also accepted top officials of the self-proclaimed governments in Donetsk and Luhansk into its ranks, along with some 200 ordinary residents of the rebel-held areas.

Analyst Oreshkin also noted the political benefit to the Kremlin, saying it could potentially lead to “almost a million additional votes for Vladimir Putin” and his United Russia party.

Amid warnings that Russia might invade Ukraine, some fear that Moscow might use the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of Russian citizens in Donbas as a pretext for military action to defend them.

Russian officials have repeatedly accused Kyiv of plans to retake the rebel-held areas by force and have promised to respond if that happens. Commenting on the lawmakers’ appeal to Putin to recognize the self-proclaimed republics, State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said Tuesday that “our citizens and compatriots living in Donbas are in need of help and support.”

Mykola Sunhurovskyi, a military expert at the Kyiv-based Razumkov Center think tank, said that Russia “could use defending the interests of Russian citizens in Donetsk and Luhansk as pretext ... for starting the war.”

Sunhurovskyi noted that Russia used a similar pretext in 2008 during its war with Georgia after handing out Russian passports to residents of the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Analyst Oreshkin said, however, that the Kremlin is much more interested in keeping the status of the rebel-held areas in limbo and showing that it has a number of options on the table — be it recognizing their independence or deploying forces to protect Russian citizens there.

“There is no political interest so far. Rather, there is political interest in scaremongering, both in Ukraine and its NATO neighbors, with such a rhetoric,” Oreshkin said.

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Karmanau reported from Kyiv, Ukraine. AP reporters Alexei Alexandrov in Donetsk, Ukraine, and Kirill Zarubin in Moscow contributed to this report.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the tensions between Russia and Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

EXPLAINER: Russia-backed rebels a thorn in Ukraine’s side

By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV

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A huge red star rises over a street in Donetsk, the territory controlled by pro-Russian militants, eastern Ukraine, Monday, Feb. 14, 2022. Amid fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, tensions have also soared in the country’s east, where Ukrainian forces are locked in a nearly eight-year conflict with Russia-backed separatists. A sharp increase in skirmishes on Thursday raised fears that Moscow could use the situation as a pretext for an incursion. (AP Photo/Alexei Alexandrov)

MOSCOW (AP) — Amid fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, tensions have also soared in the country’s east, where Ukrainian forces are locked in a long conflict with Russia-backed separatists.

More than 14,000 people have been killed in nearly eight years of fighting, and a sharp increase in skirmishes Thursday raised concern that Moscow could use the situation as a pretext for an incursion.

Here is a look at the state of affairs in the rebel-controlled territories in eastern Ukraine:

SEPARATIST REBELLION

When Ukraine’s Moscow-friendly president was driven from office by mass protests in February 2014, Russia responded by annexing Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. It then threw its weight behind an insurgency in the mostly Russian-speaking east, known as Donbas.

In April 2014, Russia-backed rebels seized government buildings in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, proclaimed the creation of “people’s republics” there and battled Ukrainian troops and volunteer battalions.

The following month, the separatist regions held a popular vote to declare independence and make a bid to become part of Russia. Moscow hasn’t accepted the motion, in the hope of using the regions as a tool to keep Ukraine in its orbit and prevent it from joining NATO.

Ukraine and the West accused Russia of backing the rebels with troops and weapons. Moscow denied that, saying any Russians who fought in the east were volunteers.

Amid ferocious battles involving tanks, heavy artillery and warplanes, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, killing all 298 people aboard. An international probe concluded that the passenger jet was downed by a Russia-supplied missile from the rebel-controlled territory, but Moscow denied any involvement.

PEACE AGREEMENTS

After a massive defeat of Ukrainian troops in the battle of Ilovaisk in August 2014, envoys from Kyiv, the rebels and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe signed a truce in the Belarusian capital of Minsk in September 2014.

The document envisaged an OSCE-observed cease-fire, a pullback of all foreign fighters, an exchange of prisoners and hostages, an amnesty for the rebels and a promise that separatist regions could have a degree of self-rule.

The deal quickly collapsed and large-scale fighting resumed, leading to another major defeat for Ukrainian forces at Debaltseve in January-February of 2015.

France and Germany brokered another peace agreement, which was signed in Minsk in February 2015 by representatives of Ukraine, Russia and the rebels. It envisaged a new cease-fire, a pullback of heavy weapons and a series of moves toward a political settlement. A declaration in support of the deal was signed by the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany.

FROZEN CONFLICT

The 2015 peace deal was a major diplomatic coup for the Kremlin, obliging Ukraine to grant special status to the separatist regions, allowing them to create their own police force and have a say in appointing local prosecutors and judges. It also envisaged that Ukraine could only regain control over the roughly 200-kilometer (125-mile) border with Russia in rebel regions after they get self-rule and hold OSCE-monitored local elections — balloting that would almost certainly keep pro-Moscow rebels in power there.

Many Ukrainians see it as a betrayal of national interests and its implementation has stalled.

The Minsk document helped end full-scale fighting, but the situation has remained tense and regular skirmishes have continued along the tense line of contact.

With the Minsk deal effectively stalled, Moscow’s hope to use rebel regions to directly influence Ukraine’s politics has failed, but the frozen conflict has drained Kyiv’s resources and effectively stymied its goal of joining NATO — which is enshrined in the Ukrainian constitution.

Moscow also has worked to secure its hold on the rebel regions by handing out more than 720,000 Russian passports to roughly one-fifth of their population of about 3.6 million. It has provided economic and financial assistance to the separatist territories, but the aid has been insufficient to alleviate the massive damage from fighting and shore up the economy. The Donbas region accounted for about 16% of Ukraine’s Gross Domestic Product before the conflict.

EFFORTS TO REVIVE PEACE DEAL

Amid soaring tensions over the Russian troop concentration near Ukraine, France and Germany have undertaken renewed efforts to encourage compliance with the 2015 deal, in the hope that it could help defuse the standoff.

Facing calls from Berlin and Paris for its implementation, Ukrainian officials have strengthened criticism of the Minsk deal and warned that it could lead to the country’s demise.

Two rounds of talks in Paris and Berlin between presidential envoys from Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany have yielded no progress.

Amid the deadlock in talks, the lower house of Russian parliament this week urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to recognize the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk. Putin signaled, however, that he wasn’t inclined to make the move that would effectively shatter the Minsk deal.

ESCALATION OF HOSTILITIES

Ukraine and the rebels accused each other Thursday of intensive shelling along the line of contact in Donetsk and Luhansk.

Separatist authorities claimed that Ukraine mounted a “large-scale provocation” and said they returned fire.

Ukraine denied opening fire and said the separatists were shelling government-controlled areas with heavy artillery and mortars. The Ukrainian military command charged that some shells hit a kindergarten in Stanytsia Luhanska, wounding two civilians, and cut power supply to half of the town.

Yasar Halit Cevik, head of the OSCE monitoring mission, said it reported 500 explosions along the contact line between Wednesday evening and 11:20 am Thursday. Cevik told the United Nations Security Council that the tension appeared to be easing after that with about 30 explosions reported, adding “it is critically important to de-escalate immediately.”

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Yuras Karmanau in Kyiv, Ukraine and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

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More AP coverage of the Ukraine crisis: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine