Africa rushes to evacuate nationals from Ukraine

Following reports of mistreatment and racial profiling of Africans in war-ravaged Ukraine, governments have begun to evacuate their nationals. Most of the evacuees are medical students hoping to finish their studies.



A government official spoke with Ghanaian students evacuated from Ukraine on their arrival in Accra


African countries have intensified efforts to evacuate their nationals from Ukraine. The African Union has urged governments to respect international law and assist all those fleeing from war in Ukraine after African students raised concerns of discrimination at the border points.

Although some students are happily back with their families, many remain stranded inside Ukraine and at border points with neighboring Poland. Other Africans have chosen to stay in Ukraine, particularly those without residence permits.

African countries that have repatriated their citizens

Zimbabwe said it had evacuated 118 students from Ukraine to Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland.

Some 79 Kenyan students have left Ukraine following Russia's invasion and have sought refuge in neighboring countries like Poland, Romania and Hungary. However, according to Kenyan authorities, only one student has arrived back in Kenya. The government of President Uhuru Kenyatta has said it is coordinating the evacuation of many other students from various cities in Ukraine.

Nigeria said 256 of its nationals have left Ukraine. Gambia said it is coordinating with Morocco and Nigeria on the possible evacuation of its citizens.

Tanzania's Foreign Ministry said that 38 students in Ukraine had crossed into neighboring Poland, and officials at Tanzania's embassies in Germany and Sweden were overseeing the repatriation of all Tanzanians still stranded inside Ukraine.

An Abidjan news website reported that Ivory Coast's foreign minister, Kandia Camara, held a meeting with envoys from the EU, US and the UK to seek their support in evacuating Ivorians from Ukraine.

Guinea's Foreign Ministry said it has created a crisis unit to help coordinate the evacuation of its citizens from Ukraine.

Samuel Adjar hugs his daughter, Princilla, a medical student who was evacuated from Ukraine

'Chaotic' border crossing

Princilla Ayealey Adjar, 23, from Ghana had spent almost five years in Chernivtsi, western Ukraine, studying medicine. She told DW she had to walk many kilometers to reach the Romanian border to get to safety.

"We got off the bus, and we had to trek over an hour and a half, and that is how we got to the border that was already chaotic," said a relieved Adjar.

"There were so many people, Ukrainians, Ghanaians, Nigerians, Zimbabweans, Ethiopians, Egyptians, Indians; everybody was trying to find their way out of the country," she said, as she recalled the challenging journey.

On March 1, Adjar and 16 other students who made it to the Romanian border and other crossing points were evacuated to the Ghanaian capital, Accra, to reunite with their families. According to Ghanaian officials, the first batch of students arrived on separate flights operated by Qatar and Turkish Airlines and are part of about 527 Ghanaians who had safely crossed the Ukrainian border to neighboring Romania, Poland, Moldova, Hungary and the Czech Republic.

Princilla's father, Samuel Adjar, told DW that the entire family "is so excited that she made it back home safely. However, Adjar said the government should prioritize evacuating those still stranded in Ukraine.

"We still have our children there [Ukraine], and we are praying that all of them will have an opportunity to move back to the borders safely and then eventually come home," he said.

For now, Princilla Adjar feels lucky to be back in Ghana, but her worries are not over yet. "We are worried that we won't be going back to school anytime soon. Russia is now targeting important infrastructure, and I don't know if our school buildings will be spared. So, it is quite worrisome," she said.

The AU has urged countries to respect international law and assist Africans seeking to flee Ukraine

Ghana vows to speed up evacuations

Ghana's foreign minister, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, said Accra had evacuated at least 500 nationals from Ukraine.

"We are committed to doing everything possible to ensure that all our nationals in Ukraine and those who have successfully exited that country can avoid harm and travel back home if they so wish," Botchwey told reporters.

She urged parents and other families to share information about their family members still inside Ukraine, and their locations, so that authorities can plan their evacuation.

Ghana is the first African country to successfully evacuate most of its citizens from Ukraine. Hundreds of Ghanaians are expected to return home in the coming days, according to Botchwey.

More than 2,000 Ghanaians have safely crossed several border points of Ukraine into neighboring countries.

However, despite the efforts to evacuate the African students, some have stayed behind regardless of the safety concerns. For instance, according to the Angolan state-owned newspaper Jornal de Angola, Angolans who had irregularly migrated to Ukraine have refused to be evacuated. The report said the Angolan migrants were afraid that Ukrainian authorities might prevent them from returning to the country.

Watch video 02:23 Stranded Nigerian student shares impressions from Ukraine

Isaac Kaledzi in Accra contributed to this article

Edited by: Chrispin Mwakideu

Fact check: Russia falsely blames Ukraine for starting war

Russia's Foreign Ministry said Moscow was acting to end the "systematic extermination of the Donbas population" that had been supposedly ongoing since 2014. 

DW Fact Check explains why this is false.



The claim is this: "Russia did not start a war, it is ending it," wrote Maria Zakharova, Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesperson, in a recent Facebook post.

In doing so, she framed the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine as part of the wider Donbas conflict, which has been raging for years. Russian President Vladimir Putin had argued similarly at the outset of the Russian attack, when he falsely justified Russia's offensive as an act of self-defense in line with Article 51 of the UN Charter. Zakharova also claimed that Ukraine planned the "systematic extermination of the Donbas population."

It's a narrative that's also being spread by Russian state broadcaster RT.

A screenshot taken of Maria Zakharova's Russian-language Facebook statement, with an auto-translated English version below

DW fact check: False

Both of Zakharova's statements are false. The current armed conflict began when Russian troops entered Ukraine on February 24, shortly after Putin, during a televised speech, announced a "special military operation" in Ukraine. Russia started the fighting and triggered an ongoing escalation when it crossed into Ukrainian territory.

The second claim made by the Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson is also false: There is no evidence whatsoever that there was a "systematic extermination" of people in the Donbas.
Russians started the armed conflict back in 2014

Ukraine and Russia disagree on who provoked the start of the conflict in 2014. It erupted after Ukraine's then-President Viktor Yanukovych refused to sign an association agreement with the EU. Pro-Western demonstrations eventually forced Yanukovych to flee the country, after which an interim government took over Ukraine.

It was then that soldiers in green uniforms but without insignia occupied Crimea. At the time, Russian officials said these troops were not acting on orders from the Kremlin, though many Western observers doubted this claim. That same year, a referendum was held on the occupied peninsula over whether it should join the Russian Federation. A majority of voters voted in favor, thus paving the way for Russian annexation. The referendum, however, was widely dismissed as illegitimate. At the same time, Russia began supporting separatist movements in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region, which was met with military action by Kyiv government forces.

The point at which this conflict turned into all-out war is disputed among the parties involved and scholars.

The contested areas of Donetsk and Luhansk declared themselves a "people's republic" in 2014. Moscow recognized them as independent on February 21, just days before this year's invasion. The conflict escalated into interstate war when Russian troops crossed the border of eastern Ukraine on February 24, 2022, entering Ukrainian territory.
No evidence of planned genocide

In her Facebook statement, Maria Zakharova also said that at least at least 13,000 people had been killed in the war in eastern Ukraine since 2014. She also claimed that there was a "systematic extermination of the Donbas population." There is no evidence, however, that proves a "systematic extermination" of the civilian population is occurring. An OSCE monitoring mission active in Ukraine since 2014 has found no evidence of mass targeted killings of civilians in the Donbas region. So far, the Russian Foreign Ministry has not provided any proof to back up its claim that the people of eastern Ukraine are subject to "systematic extermination."

Watch video 03:35 Fact check: 5 fakes of the war in Ukraine

The UN has accused both sides of human rights violations such as torture and raping prisoners, especially during the early years of the conflict. It also says the Minsk ceasefire agreement was repeatedly broken by both sides.

It is true that at least 13,000 people have been killed in the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine. According to the latest report by the United Nations, up to 13,200 people died in the conflict until early 2020. Of those, 3,350 were civilians and 5,650 insurgents, according to the UN. It says that 4,100 of those killed were members of the Ukrainian military.

Conclusion: Maria Zakharova's claim that Ukraine started this war is false. The Russian Federation illegally annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, sparking broad international condemnation. On February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine from the north, northeast, and from the Crimean Peninsula in the south, initiating a full-scale interstate war between Russia and Ukraine.

Kherson: Eyewitness reports from a Ukrainian city under siege

One week into the war Russia appears to have taken the first major city in Ukraine. Residents of Kherson tell DW about what it's like to be in a city under siege, with roadblocks and looting.


Missiles reportedly hit civilian targets in Kherson as well

According to Ukrainian authorities, Russian "occupiers" have made it into all parts of the port city of Kherson. They were "very dangerous," Ukraine said.

"We have no Ukrainian armed forces in the city, only peaceful residents who want to live here!" Kherson's mayor Igor Kolychayev said in a statement on Thursday night. Russian soldiers were in the city administration, but the Ukrainian flag was still flying over the building.

Local resident Alexey Sandakov, who lives near downtown Kherson, confirmed on Thursday that the Ukrainian administration was still up and running. He told DW over the phone that he hadn't been onto the street in two days.

"We nailed the windows and doors shut," he said, explaining they'd set up a camera to show them what was going on on the street outside. "We saw military vehicles, but no ground forces."

Residents say there are military trucks on the streets of Kherson

Sandakov and another resident, Artemii Perun, also reported looting by Russian soldiers. Perun said he had temporarily moved to another part of the city because his apartment on the outskirts was within range of the fighting. He was still hearing shots on Thursday night. Reports by the Ukrainian army, however, no longer mention any fighting for the city.

Most people stay at home

The port city of Kherson in southern Ukraine is strategically important for Russia, being close to the Crimean Peninsula and at the mouth of the Dnipro River. With a population of around 300,000, it would be the first major city to be taken by Moscow's troops.

According to Artemii Perun, Russian troops have set up roadblocks. "Anyone who is traveling alone or as a couple and has food or medicine with them can usually pass. But there are also some who have been turned away."

There are long queues outside grocery stores and pharmacies, he says. "Many try to help each other and exchange medicines with each other." Most residents, however, stay at home if possible.

US pensioner Donald Flett has been living in Kherson for years. He reported over the phone that shortly before the Russian invasion, he saw missile attacks near his home on the northern outskirts of the city. He sent DW a video that is supposed to show hits on the residential area.

"A missile hit the first floor of a block of flats. An old woman lived there. They carried her out in pieces," he says. He also confirmed that there has been no change in the city administration so far. He is in contact with Mayor Kolychayev, who is currently negotiating a humanitarian corridor with the Russian army.
Russia advances

Moscow began its invasion of Ukraine a week ago and has since attacked several cities. Over the past days, Russia has stepped up its airstrikes — while at the same time, talks have taken place between Moscow and Kyiv.

The much smaller port city of Berdyansk, 350 kilometers east of Kherson, has already been occupied by Russian troops. An offensive is also underway against the port city of Mariupol, a little further to the east.

"Today was the most difficult and cruel day of the war so far," Mariupol mayor Vadim Boichenko said in a video message. The city council said Russia kept Mariupol under constant fire and was deliberately damaging civilian infrastructure.

Destroyed bridges and railroad tracks made evacuations and delivery of supplies impossible. Water supply, energy and heating were also all affected.

According to the mayor of the southern Ukrainian city of Enerhodar, Russian troops fired on a checkpoint set up by civilians there. The enemy had advanced with a large military convoy and had used weapons against citizens, Dmytro Orlov said on Thursday.

These claims could however not initially be verified. Russia strongly denies targeting civilians.

Key Russian liberal media close, suspend operations amid Kremlin war crackdown


Thu, 3 March 2022, 1

This combination of pictures shows Russian activists protesting government restrictions on freedom of speech (AFP/Natalia KOLESNIKOVA) (Natalia KOLESNIKOVA)

Two of Russia's landmark liberal media outlets were dissolved or suspended operations on Thursday, amid an unprecedented Kremlin crackdown over its war with Ukraine.

Alexei Venediktov, chief editor of Ekho Moskvy radio, told AFP that the station's board of directors has decided to disband the iconic outlet following government moves this week to clamp down on the few independent media left in the country.

Authorities say they are targeting outlets that spread "deliberately false information" about the war in Ukraine.

Choking back tears, Natalia Sindeyeva, CEO of independent TV Dozhd said she and her colleagues have made "the hardest decision of their lives" to temporarily suspend the work of the channel.

"We need strength and some time to exhale and understand how to work next," Sindeyeva said on Dozhd's YouTube channel, after its website was blocked by the government on Wednesday.

Founded in 2008, the television channel is considered to be one the few remaining bastions of free speech in Russia.

It had survived several crackdowns and cataclysms, but kept working, providing an unparallelled coverage of anti-Kremlin protests, the jailing of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, and since last week, the war in Ukraine.

But Sindeyeva said that a bill taken up by the Russian parliament this week that introduces fines and jail time for publishing "fakes" about Russia's war in Ukraine would completely incapacitate Dozhd.

"Our work will be practically impossible. Or we will be left reporting on beautiful art shows and fireworks," a shaken Sindeyeva said.

"We really hope that we will get back on the air."

A few moments later, Sindeyeva was surrounded by a dozen Dozhd employees, some wearing black hoodies with the channel's logo.

Crying or holding back tears, they each said goodbye to their viewers and thanked them for support.

- 'Half war-like environment' -

Dozhd chief editor Tikhon Dzyadko and his wife Ekaterina Kotrikadze, an anchor at the channel, said Wednesday that they had temporarily left Russia, citing government pressure and concerns for their safety.

The atmosphere was slightly more cheerful at Ekho's bureau, where Venediktov, who has been at the helm of the radio station for over 20 years, vowed to continue working.

Speaking to AFP, Venediktov said he would challenge the board's decision and the station would continue operating "until they shut us up with force," Venediktov said.

"We are living in a half-warlike environment now, and the government is introducing, step by step, restrictive laws for the media and in general, not just for journalists."

He compared the actions of the Russian government to the late years of the Soviet Union, before Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika liberalisation campaign started.

"We are returning to that," Venediktov said. "We will continue living and working with all that."

Ekho Moskvy made its name when it became a rare uncensored source of information for Russians during the failed 1991 coup, which precipitated the Soviet collapse.

- Anti-anxiety medication -

At Ekho's office, journalists, many of them young and wearing jeans and hoodies, appeared determined. Laughter and chatter was heard in the halls as reporters hugged and expressed support for one another. A poster on a wall read "No to War."

"We are in a fighting mood," said Nikita Vasilenko 27, a producer at Ekho. "We will continue working as a private journalist collective".

News reporter Oleg Ovcharenko, 26, admitted that some of his colleagues had to take anti-anxiety medication when the news came of Ekho being banned.

"It was a shock for everybody, this piece of news was hard on many people," he told AFP.

But Ovcharenko is not ready to give up.

"It is too early to panic. We are continuing our job," he said.

Hundreds of people have been killed and hundreds of thousands have fled Ukraine since Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops there under the pretext of "demilitarising and denazifying" Russia's Western-leaning neighbour.

The international community has responded with widespread condemnation and hit Russia with harsh economic sanctions in order to cripple its economy.

But as Russian troops continued shelling Ukrainian cities, causing numerous civilian deaths, Putin was unbowed Thursday, vowing to continue his "uncompromising fight against militants of nationalist armed groups".

Political analyst Kirill Rogov said the media crackdown was a dark sign of more devastation and pain to befall Ukraine.

"The most horrible thing is not the onslaught of censorship gone insane, but that fact that, with a high degree of probability, these (media) closures are a preparation for the storming of Ukrainian cities and for hiding the scale of the losses and destruction," Rogov wrote on Facebook.

bur/pvh

United States returns pillaged skull, golden objects to France



The skull was originally a part of the Parisian catacombs -- which houses millions of bones in caves under the streets of Paris (AFP/Nicholas Kamm)

Sébastien BLANC
Thu, March 3, 2022, 6:25 PM·2 min read


The United States has returned a set of illegally obtained artifacts, including a skull from the Parisian catacombs and golden ingots from an Atlantic shipwreck, to their rightful owner -- the French state.

The prized objects, which also included an ancient Roman coin, were handed over on Wednesday during an official "restitution" ceremony at the French ambassador's residence in Washington.

Steve Francis, a high-ranking official in the US Department of Homeland Security, along with French Ambassador Philippe Etienne, unveiled the pieces and detailed how American authorities had worked with their French counterparts to get them back into French hands.


"It is unacceptable that cultural property can be stolen and trafficked, and this is one of the mutual priorities between the United States and France," the ambassador told AFP.

- Treasure hunt -

The five golden ingots had originally been looted from the Prince de Conty, a ship that wrecked in December 1746 off the French island of Belle-Ile-en-Mer, near mainland France, according to a handout provided by the French embassy.

The vessel, which was on a return trip from China, had long been forgotten, until a teacher in 1975 came across archival documents mentioning its location. He received authorization to excavate the site, but it was quickly looted, with many of the ingots disappearing before arrests were made.

However, in December 2017, five ingots matching the description of the Prince de Conty gold appeared on a list of items up for auction in California.

A French agency dedicated to underwater archeology notified American authorities, who stepped in to seize the objects.

"The evidence that was provided by the French government was overwhelming," said David Keller, a US agent who focuses on cultural property and antiquities.

"These marks on them identify the people that actually made the ingots in the Qing dynasty," Keller told AFP, "so there's a lot of history just wrapped up in it."

The golden coin is much older -- dating back to the third century AD.

It is part of a larger treasure trove of ancient Roman objects, known as the Treasure of Lava, which was found in 1985 on the French island of Corsica, and was sold without official permission.

According to the French Embassy, specialists in currency "consider it one of the most important monetary treasures in the world."

The skull originated in the Parisian catacombs, extensive caverns created in the late 18th century to house relocated remains from local cemeteries.

The site, known as an ossuary, is the largest in the world, containing the bones of more than six million Parisians.

The skull was recovered from an antiquities dealer in Houston, Texas in 2015.

seb/dax/des

ECOCIDE

Long road ahead for Iraq pledge to phase out gas flares

The government has pledged to phase out the practice by 2030 but the road to a greener, less wasteful energy sector is proving a long one.

 AFP 

THE PERFECT PICTURE OF ECOCIDE

A boat sails past the Umm Qasr port near Iraq's southern port city of Basra on Feb. 11, 2022. (Photo: Hussein Faleh/AFP)

In the oilfields of southern Iraq, billions of cubic feet of gas literally go up in smoke, burnt off on flare stacks for want of the infrastructure to capture and process it.

The flares produce vast amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, contributing to global warming without any economic or social benefit.

Analysts say the waste is particularly egregious, as Iraq is a significant importer of natural gas, meeting a third of its needs through expensive and not always reliable supplies from neighbouring Iran.

The government has pledged to phase out the practice by 2030 but the road to a greener, less wasteful energy sector is proving a long one.

For the oil companies exploiting the mega fields around Basra, it is actually cheaper to flare off the associated gas than to capture, process and market it, despite the obvious environmental costs.

Currently, only half of the three million cubic feet of gas that comes out of Iraqi oil wells each day is captured and processed.

The rest is burnt off in flares creating the plumes of acrid black smoke that blight the skies.

"Flared gas, if captured and processed, could provide electricity to three million homes," said Yesar al-Maleki, Gulf analyst at Middle East Economic Survey.

"This could definitely help the country end its acute power shortages that go up all the way to a supply and demand gap of nine gigawatts in summer."

'Up in smoke'

In December, Iraq's oil minister Ihsan Ismail pledged to cut flare gas by 90 percent by 2024.

But despite contracts with foreign oil majors, including France's TotalEnergies, the target is likely to face bureaucratic obstacles in a sector which provides 90 percent of government revenues.

Over the past two years, the government has cut flare gas by just five percent.

The captured gas is fuel that Iraq desperately needs for its power stations.

Under an exemption from US sanctions on Iran, Iraq imports 750 million cubic feet per day from its eastern neighbour.

Any disruption to that supply can lead to widespread power cuts, particularly in summer when the demand for air conditioning and refrigeration peaks.

Maleki said the failure to address the issue bore multiple costs for Iraq.

"It loses financially by burning money in the air; it loses more money by importing gas from neighbouring countries at a premium; it loses more money resolving resultant issues in its power sector when it switches its gas turbines to costly and pollutive liquid fuels; and it definitely loses environmentally."

Basra province is home to Iraq's five largest oilfields and accounts for 65 percent of its flared gas, according to World Bank figures.

The Basrah Gas Company, a consortium of Iraq's state-owned South Gas Company, Shell and Mitsubishi, captures one billion cubic feet of gas from the three fields in which it operates.

It plans to raise that figure to 1.4 billion cubic feet by the end of 2023 but doing so requires heavy investment, in processing as well as capture.

Managing director Malcolm Mayes said the consortium was investing around $1.5 billion in a giant new processing facility in Artawi, outside Basra.

"In Artawi, we are building two processing trains," Mayes said.

"The first will be on stream in May 2023 and the second will come on stream in November 2023, and at that point we will have the capacity to process 1.4 billion cubic feet -- approaching 90 percent from our lease area."

'Cleaner electricity'

Iraq has also signed a mega-contract with TotalEnergies that includes building a processing facility for the associated gas from three southern oilfeilds.

"The plant's launch is scheduled for 2026," the French firm said.

Iraq says the plant will process 300 million cubic feet a day of gas that is currently flared off, rising to 600 million in a second phase.

Teams from TotalEnergies are already on the ground carrying out preliminary studies, but the process is dragging on.

Last month, Baghdad said some clauses of the contract "require time and cannot be implemented or solved in a short period".

A similar project awarded to Chinese firms in neighbouring Maysan province is only half finished.

In the meantime, Basra's residents continue to live with the environmental consequences.

"Everything is polluted by these flares -- the water, the animals, they're all dead," said Salem, an 18-year-old shepherd in the village of Nahr Bin Omar, site of a major oilfield just north of Basra.

Moroccan appeals court upholds six-year sentence for dissident journalist Omar Radi

Thu, 3 March 2022

Omar Radi
Moroccan investigative journalist and human rights activist

Moroccan journalist and rights activist Omar Radi has been sentenced on appeal to six years in prison on espionage and rape charges.

Radi, a 35-year-old freelance journalist known as a vocal critic of the authorities, has insisted on his innocence throughout his two-year-long trial.

“My only fault is to have demanded independent justice,” Radi said before the judge’s verdict on Thursday, to applause from supporters in the courtroom.

Accused of undermining state security with “foreign financing” and of rape, Radi was initially sentenced last July.

His trial began in 2020 just days after human rights group Amnesty International said Moroccan authorities had planted Pegasus spyware on his cellphone – a claim denied by Morocco.

Radi’s arrest and detention was protested by rights activists, intellectuals and politicians both inside the country and abroad.

Earlier this week, the prosecution had called for “the maximum sentence” against him. Rape is punishable by up to ten years imprisonment.

After the original sentence was upheld, defence lawyer Miloud Kandil called it “a very hard judgment”.

“We have exposed all the elements proving the innocence of Omar Radi before the court but sadly nothing has been taken into account,” he told AFP.

In the same case, fellow journalist Imad Stitou was sentenced to one year in prison.

Stitou, who was initially presented as the sole witness for the prosecution, was said to have been present with Radi when he allegedly raped a woman.

Stitou left Morocco for Tunisia and was tried in absentia.

Radi’s is the latest in a series of harsh sentences passed against journalists in the North African kingdom and in neighbouring Algeria.

Authorities in both countries have detained and tried journalists on charges ranging from harming national interests to sexual assault.

Morocco is currently ranked 136th out of 180 countries on watchdog RSF’s World Press Freedom Index.

(AFP)

Russia Ukraine conflict
Tigers, lions evacuated from Ukraine zoo to Poland

A 17 year-old female tiger is seen in a cage at the border crossing in Korczowa, Poland, as she is being transported in a truck from Ukraine to a zoo in Poland on March 3, 2022. (AFP)

AFP, Poland
Published: 04 March ,2022:

Six lions and six tigers evacuated from near Kyiv arrived at a zoo in Poland on Thursday following a two-day odyssey skirting battle frontlines and coming face to face with Russian tanks, a zoo spokesman said.

A Ukrainian truck drove the animals, along with two wild cats and a wild dog, nearly 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) to the Polish border while avoiding the Zhytomyr region, which the invading Russian forces have bombarded, spokeswoman Malgorzata Chodyla told AFP.

At one point, the truck had to stop overnight opposite Russian tanks.

The driver rested under his vehicle while the owner of the Ukrainian shelter fed the animals because the transport crew did not know how to, the spokeswoman said.

At the border, the animals were transferred to a Polish truck while the Ukrainian driver returned home to his children.

For now, the animals will be cared for at the Poznan zoo.

Zoo director Ewa Zgrabczynska, who helped arrange the evacuation, said she is already in contact with several western organizations that want to take in the animals.

She also launched a fundraising drive as the city of Poznan, which runs the zoo, lacks a budget for the evacuated animals.

Russians pack trains into Finland as sanctions bite

While trains out of Russia have been sold out, the return service from Helsinki to St Petersburg has only been 30 percent full

AFP / Mar 4, 2022

People get off the Allegro train at the central railway station on March 3, 2022 in Helsinki, Finland

HELSINKI: It's one of the few remaining routes from Russia to the EU: trains to Finland are packed with Russians fearful that now is their last chance to escape the impact of Western sanctions.

After two years of pandemic, the 6:40 am from St Petersburg was full of largely Russian passengers as it pulled into Helsinki station on Thursday.

"We decided with our families to go back as soon as possible, because it's unclear what the situation will be in a week," Muscovite Polina Poliakova told AFP as she wheeled her suitcase along platform 9.

Travelling "is hard now because everything is getting cancelled," added Beata Iukhtanova, her friend who studies with her in Paris, where the pair were headed.

The Allegro express train linking St Petersburg to the Finnish capital is currently the only open rail route between Russia and the EU.

It is therefore one of the few remaining ways out of the country since the widespread airspace closures in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine a week ago.

"The trains coming from St Petersburg to Helsinki are now full for the next few days," said Topi Simola, senior vice president of Finnish railway operator VR.

He said that passenger numbers jumped on Saturday, two days after Moscow began its assault on Ukraine.

Since then, people's motives for travelling on the 3.5 hour twice-a-day service appear to have changed, Simola said.

"We can see from the luggage they carry that people are moving to somewhere else, they are basically moving for good."

The Allegro train to Helsinki is, however, only open to a select few.

Russia stipulates that passengers must be Russian or Finnish citizens, a visa is required, and passengers must prove they have an EU-recognised Covid vaccination, not the Sputnik dose which is most commonly given in Russia.

Most passengers are therefore Russians who live or work in Europe, such as 14-year-old Maria and her mother Svetlana, who took a last-minute train to Finland after the cancellation of their flight on Sunday back to Austria, where they live.

"Everyone was like, 'I don't know what to do'," Maria told AFP. "First we thought we should travel through Turkey, but it's way more expensive than Finland, so we are lucky."

VR, which operates the service in partnership with the Russian railways, is looking to have the service opened to EU passport holders, and to increase capacity.

"We know that there are tens of thousands of EU citizens still in Russia and we assume that many of them would like to come back home," Simola said.

Since the start of the invasion large numbers of Russians are reported to be looking to leave the country, worried that the borders will close imminently and about the impact of Western sanctions.

"Many people are in a panic," said Daria, arriving back in Helsinki a week or two earlier than planned, to resume her studies.

"I know some people who are quite desperate at the moment to go abroad," said Elena, a Russian who lives and works in Finland and who did not want to use her full name.

Elena was visiting her native Moscow when the Ukraine assault began last Thursday, and changed her flight to return to Finland on the same day, becoming one of the last to travel before flights to the EU were frozen.

A lot of people "don't feel safe, they know that the economic situation will be very hard from now on, and also many people from a moral perspective can't bear staying," the 37-year-old told AFP.

While trains out of Russia have been sold out, the return service from Helsinki to St Petersburg has only been 30 percent full, Simola told AFP.

"I'm not planning to go back to Russia anytime soon, that's for sure," Elena said.
But she added that despite the difficulties there, "it's impossible to compare it to the horrors happening in Ukraine at the moment."

Sony and Honda plan electric vehicle joint firm


Sony and Honda hope to establish their joint venture by the end of this year (AFP/Behrouz MEHRI) (Behrouz MEHRI)

Fri, March 4, 2022, 12:20 AM·2 min read

Sony is teaming up with automaker Honda to start a new company that will develop and sell electric vehicles, the electronics giant said Friday, its latest step into the rapidly growing sector.

Major global carmakers are increasingly prioritising electric and hybrid vehicles as concern about climate change grows.

Sony's news comes on the heels of a January unveiling of a new prototype, its Vision-S electric vehicle, and the announcement that its new subsidiary Sony Mobility will explore jumping into the sector.


Sony Group said in a statement Friday that the two Japanese names hope to establish their firm by the end of this year, calling it "a strategic alliance".

"This alliance aims... to realize a new generation of mobility and services that are closely aligned with users and the environment," Sony said in a statement.

Sales of their first electric model are expected to begin in 2025, with Honda responsible for its manufacturing but both companies working on design, tech and sales.

"Although Sony and Honda are companies that share many historical and cultural similarities, our areas of technological expertise are very different," Sony Group president Kenichiro Yoshida said.

"I believe this alliance which brings together the strengths of our two companies offers great possibilities for the future of mobility."

At present, around 10 percent of European car sales are EVs, and the US figure is just two percent.

But demand is growing, and other major automakers including Honda's Japanese rivals are investing money and resources into electric vehicles.

Earlier this year, the Nissan auto alliance promised to offer 35 new electric models by 2030 as it announced a total investment of $25 billion in the sector.

Toyota, the world's top-selling carmaker, has also recently hiked its 2030 electric vehicle sales goal by 75 percent in a more ambitious plan for the sector.

kaf/dhc