It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Tuesday, January 28, 2025
Off-grid solar energy holds key to narrowing energy access gap in Africa
Issued on: 27/01/2025 - As a major energy summit kicks off in Tanzania towards the goal of delivering affordable electricity to 300 million more people by 2030, FRANCE 24's Yuka Royer speaks with Sarah Malm, Executive Director at GOGLA, about the importance of off-grid solar power. But first, the release of Chinese AI chatbot DeepSeek has caused a global rout in technology stocks, with US chip designer Nvidia losing about $600 billion in its market value in a single day.
US aerospace giant Boeing posted nearly 12 billion dollars in annual net loss for 2024, as a series of safety issues and a seven-week strike by factory workers impacted production. The company's stock however rallied after the latest financial results were announced, as investor focus turned to its recovery plan. Plus, Coca Cola has recalled several of its popular soft drinks including Coke, Fanta and Sprite in several European countries, after detecing higher-than-normal levels of chlorate.
04:57
World's biggest iceberg risks collision with 'ecologically rich' British islan
A23a, an iceberg 33 times the size of Paris, is bearing down on the remote British overseas territory of South Georgia almost four decades after having broken off from its Antarctic ice shelf.
A trillion-tonne iceberg 33 times the size of Paris is making its relentless way towards the remote overseas British territory of South Georgia.
The world's largest iceberg, which split off from an Antarctic ice shelf 38 years ago before becoming stuck in an oceanic vortex, is now on a potential collision course with the sparsely inhabited island – and threatening to disrupt the lives of millions of penguins and seals that call it home.
"South Georgia is an amazingly ecologically rich island," oceanographer Andrew Meijers said. "It's a breeding ground for millions of penguins and seals. If this iceberg parks there, it will potentially block pathways to their food ... which unfortunately can dramatically increase mortality rates."
Although the movement of megabergs and ice sheets across the world's oceans is a natural phenomenon, researchers say that climate change has dramatically increased the rate of ice loss from the Antarctic continent.
SOUTH GEORGIA
80TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE LIBERATION OF AUSCHWITZ
The liberation of Auschwitz:
What the Soviets discovered on January 27, 1945 Eighty years ago on January 27, 1945, soldiers from Russia's Red Army entered the gates of Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland and were the first to discover the horrors of the concentration camp where more than a million people, most of them Jews, had been murdered. They found just a few thousand survivors in a sprawling complex where the SS had tried to erase all traces of their crimes.
In his Holocaust memoir, "The Truce", Italian prisoner Primo Levi recounted his first contact with the Red Army soldiers when Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp was liberated.
“The first Russian patrol came in sight of the camp about midday on 27 January 1945,” he wrote. “They were four young soldiers on horseback, who advanced along the road that marked the limits of the camp, cautiously holding their sten-guns. When they reached the barbed wire, they stopped to look, exchanging a few timid words, and throwing strangely embarrassed glances at the sprawling bodies, at the battered huts and at us few still alive."
Imprisoned since February 1944 in Monowitz, one of the three camps located in the sprawling concentration camp grounds, Levi witnessed the men's unease as they caught sight of a place that has since become a symbol of Nazi brutality.
“They did not greet us, nor did they smile; they seemed oppressed not only by compassion but by a confused restraint, which sealed their lips and bound their eyes to the funeral scene.”
Facing the ‘unimaginable’
On January 27, 1945, these Soviet soldiers witnessed the unimaginable.
“They were contingents from the first Ukrainian front. The Red Army stumbled upon this site by chance. Going into Auschwitz wasn’t a war goal. You can imagine these people's astonishment as they discovered one concentration camp after another,” said historian Alexandre Bande, a Holocaust specialist.
A photo taken in January 1945 showing the entrance to the Birkenau camp and its railroad line, after its liberation by Soviet troops. AFP - -
In his latest book, Auschwitz 1945, Bande has tried to shed light on what happened that historic day and in the weeks that followed.
While many books have focused on the workings of Auschwitz-Birkenau, with its selections and extermination process, Bande chose to look at the gaps in the story of its liberation.
“What happened on this site has left such a profound imprint on people's minds that historians, the general public and eye witnesses have been more interested in what occurred during (the liberation) rather than what happened afterwards.”
On the morning of the liberation at the end of January, the Soviet soldiers encountered fierce resistance from German troops. Intense fighting took place on the outskirts of the camp. Once they had overpowered these enemy soldiers, the Red Army discovered a handful of survivors: some 7,000 to 8,000 people. “They were mainly men, women and children who were deemed too incapacitated to be moved,” Bande said. ‘The snow was red with blood’
Just a few days earlier, on January 17, the Germans had begun evacuating Auschwitz-Birkenau. Hitler had ordered that no prisoner should fall into enemy hands alive. Nearly 60,000 people were dragged off in rags onto the roads in the middle of winter, heading west in what became known as the notorious death marches.
“We left in columns of 500. We walked for practically three days and three nights,” Raphaël Esrail, who was deported by convoy no. 67, told FRANCE 24 in 2020.
“What I remember most, and can't forget, are those men and women on the side of the road who had died. They'd been shot in the head by an SS man, or had to walk barefoot for hours. They had fallen as if in prayer, their legs frozen,” he said, recounting the transfer to the Gross-Rosen camp.
“I never expected this. The death marches were harrowing. The snow was red with blood. We were surrounded every 50 metres by the SS,” Léa Schwartzmann, a prisoner on the same convoy who was evacuated to the Ravensbrück camp, said in an interview in 2016.
Before dragging prisoners onto death marches, the SS tried to destroy as much evidence of their crimes as possible. As early as autumn 1944, Nazi authorities were making preparations to abandon Auschwitz-Birkenau. Pits containing the ashes of victims were liquidated, while the crematoria and gas chambers were demolished. When the Soviets entered the camp, however, much of the physical evidence remained.
“When they arrived at the barracks where the bags full of hair were stored, they understood that these were human remains. But it took them some time to understand the reality of the murders of hundreds of thousands of people,” Bande said. Reconstructing the past
Evidence of the atrocities was captured in pictures by photographers attached to the Red Army. They photographed or filmed the dying in the barracks, the piled-up corpses and the 40,000 pairs of spectacles and 50,000 hairbrushes in storage.
Women prisoners are pictured in their barracks after the liberation in January 1945 of the Auschwitz concentration camp by Soviet troops. AFP - -
“The first series of images taken in the immediate aftermath were of poor quality, due to the lighting conditions and the equipment used,” Bande explained.
“The second set of images is more recognisable. You can see, for example, prisoners falling into the arms of soldiers, but these are reconstructions. They were made by the Soviets in the weeks that followed. The idea was not to dwell on the suffering of the prisoners, but to highlight the heroism of the soldiers of the glorious Red Army.”
For some survivors, liberation did not end the suffering. As Albert Grinholtz, deported on convoy no. 4, recalled in 1991: “The soldiers, shocked by our starvation and skeletal bodies, immediately prepared soup in a wheelbarrow. (...) Closing my eyes, I remember this scene, the first bit of nourishment after so much deprivation and suffering. It caused many casualties among our comrades, who were unable to resist so much food, it was too rich.”
Survivors took weeks, sometimes months, to return to their home town or country. Of the almost 69,000 people transported from France to Auschwitz-Birkenau, only 3% ever returned home. In the aftermath of the liberation, the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp was repurposed. The Soviets interned German prisoners of war and Poles suspected of collaboration there, while locals scoured the many barracks that were torn down salvaging scraps of timber. Trials and executions were also held at Auschwitz, including that of former camp commander Rudolf Höss.
In 1947, a memorial museum was finally opened to “protect the site and ensure knowledge is passed down of the crimes committed there”. Eighty years on, Auschwitz-Birkenau has become an important place of remembrance, symbolic of the Holocaust. Last year, it welcomed 1.83 million visitors.
“It's a symbol, especially in France, because the majority of Jewish deportees died there, but also because it's one of the best-preserved sites. It's more difficult attracting hundreds of thousands of tourists to a simple monument or memorial,” Bande explained.
“Auschwitz allows us to show the magnitude of the atrocities.”
This article has been translated from the original in French by Nicole Trian.
Newly discovered photos of Nazi deportations show Jewish victims as they were last seen alive
Deportation of Jews in Bielefeld, Germany, on Dec. 13, 1941.
The Holocaust was the first mass atrocity to be heavily photographed.
The mass production and distribution of cameras in the 1930s and 1940s enabled Nazi officials and ordinary people to widely document Germany’s persecution of Jews and other religious and ethnic minorities.
I co-direct an international research project to collect every available image documenting Nazi mass deportations of Jews, Roma and Sinti, as well as euthanasia victims, in Nazi Germany between 1938 and 1945. The most recently discovered series of images will be unveiled on Jan. 27, 2025 – Holocaust Remembrance Day.
In most cases, these are the very last pictures taken of Holocaust victims before they were deported and perished. That fact gives the project its name, #LastSeen.
A few of the images we’ve tracked down were taken by Jewish people, not Nazi officials, offering a rare glimpse of Nazi mass deportations from a victim’s perspective. As descendants of survivors help our researchers identify the deportees in these images and tell their stories, we give previously faceless victims a voice.
The #LastSeen project is a collaboration between several German academic and educational institutions and the USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research in the United States. When it began in late 2021, researchers knew of a few dozen deportation images of Jews from 27 German towns that had been gathered for a 2011-2012 exhibition in Berlin.
After contacting 1,700 public and private archives in Germany and worldwide to find more, #LastSeen has now collected visual evidence from 60 cities and towns in Nazi Germany. Of these, we’ve analyzed 36 series containing over 420 images, including dozens of never-before-seen photo series from 20 towns.
Most photographs of Nazi mass deportations from local archives published in our digital atlas were taken by the perpetrators, who documented the event for the police or municipality. That has heavily shaped our visual understanding of these crimes, because they display victims as a faceless mass. When individuals were depicted, it was most often through an antisemitic lens.
The LastSeen digital atlas shows locations of deportations where visual documentation has been uncovered. Screenshot, LastSeen, CC BY-SA
We have, however, obtained a handful of images taken from a victim’s perspective. In January 2024, the #LastSeen team shared newly discovered photographs showing the Nazi deportations in what was then Breslau, Germany – today Wroclaw, Poland.
They were sent to us for analysis by Steffen Heidrich, a staff member of the Regional Association of Jewish Communities in Saxony, Germany, who came across an envelope titled “miscellaneous” while reorganizing his archive. It contained 13 deportation photographs – the last images taken of dozens of Jewish victims before they were transported from Breslau to Nazi-occupied Lithuania and massacred in November 1941. Jewish resistance
Many of these pictures in this series show a large, mixed age group of men and women wearing the yellow star – the notorious Nazi-mandated sign for Jews – gathering outside with bundles of their belongings. Some are taken from a peculiar angle, from behind a tree or a wall, suggesting they were snapped clandestinely.
Given the deportation assembly point for the Breslau Jews, a guarded local beer garden, our researchers knew that only a person with permission to access that property could have shot these pictures.
For these two reasons, we concluded that an employee of the Jewish community of Breslau must have documented the Nazi crimes – most likely Albert Hadda, a Jewish architect and photographer who clandestinely photographed the November 1938 pogrom in Breslau.
Hadda’s marriage to a Christian partially protected him from persecution. Between 1941 and 1943, the city’s Jewish community tasked him with caring for the deportees at the assembly point until their forced removal.
These 13 recently discovered pictures constitute the most comprehensive series illuminating the crime of mass deportations from a victim’s perspective in Nazi Germany. Their unearthing is testimony to the recently rediscovered widespread individual resistance by ordinary Jews who fought Nazi persecution. Documenting Fulda
Our project has also identified new deportation photos taken in the German town of Fulda in December 1941, during a snowstorm.
Previously, historians knew of only three pictures of this deportation event. Preserved in the city archive, they show the deportees at the Fulda train station during heavy snowfall.
We discovered two new images of the same Nazi deportation, apparently taken by the same photographer, in a videotaped survivor interview in the Visual History Archive of the USC Shoah Foundation in Los Angeles.
In 1996, the Shoah Foundation interviewed Miriam Berline, née Gottlieb, the daughter of a successful Orthodox Jewish merchant in Fulda. At the end of the two-hour interview, Berline held two photographs up to the camera. They clearly show the same snowy deportation in Fulda. Screenshot from Miriam Berline’s interview about the Fulda deportations. USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, CC BY-SA
Berline, born in 1925, escaped Nazi Germany in 1939. She did not remember how her family obtained the images but recalled the photographer as Otto Weissbach, a “wonderful” man who had helped Fulda’s Jewish families.
Our researchers investigated and learned his name was Arthur Weissbach, a non-Jewish neighbor of the Gottliebs. The factory he owned still exists. Descendants of Jewish families have since confirmed that he kept valuables for them and took care of elderly relatives who stayed behind.
Weissbach’s niece said he was a passionate hobby photographer. Since Weissbach kept contact with survivors after the war, he might have given the images to the Gottlieb family. Today, the family’s copies are lost, but their existence is preserved in Berline’s video interview at the USC Shoah Foundation.
The pictures show the Jews at the Fulda train station on Dec. 8, 1941 – revealing how Nazi deportations happened in plain view.
The day before, Jewish men and women from around Fulda had been summoned and spent the night at a local school gym. In the morning, they were taken to the train station and forced by police to board a train to Kassel, in central Germany, and then eastward onto Riga, in Nazi-occupied Latvia.
In total, 1,031 Jews were deported from Kassel to Riga. Only 12 from Fulda survived. Identifying the deportation victims
It is difficult to identify the people in the photos we discover. So far, we’ve published 279 biographies in the digital atlas.
In the future, artificial intelligence may help us identify more people from the photos in our collection. But for now, this process takes exhaustive research with the help of local researchers and descendants of survivors, whose names are known from archived transport lists.
Families often struggle to recognize individuals in these images, but sometimes they have family photos that help us do so.
Take, for example, this posed family portrait of two young girls. They are Susanne and Tamara Cohn
Relatives of the Cohn family had this photo. It, along with data from the local Nazi transport list, established that two girls photographed in one of his Breslau deportation shots were the daughters of Willy Cohn.
Cohn, a well-known German-Jewish medieval historian and high school teacher in Breslau, kept a detailed diary about the persecution of the town’s Jews from 1933 to 1941. It was unearthed and published in the 1990s.
This photo, below, may be the last picture ever taken of his children with their mother, Gertrud.
Gertrud, Susanne and Tamara Cohn, Breslau, November 1941.
The #LastSeen research project is generating new insights into the history of Nazi mass deportations, new methodologies for photo analysis and new tools for Holocaust education.
In addition to the digital atlas, which has been visited by more than 50,000 people since its launch in 2023, we have developed severalaward-winning educational tools, including an online game that invites students to search for clues, facts and images of Nazi deportations in an artificial attic.
In workshops for teachers and seminars with students, #LastSeen teaches the history of Nazi deportations and demonstrates how historical photo research works. In Fulda, for example, high schoolers helped us locate the exact places where the photographs were taken.
Those pictures will be published in our atlas on Holocaust Remembrance Day 2025. A public commemoration in Fulda will feature the local students’ contributions.
Depending on fundraising, we hope to extend the #LastSeen project beyond Germany. Collecting images from all 20-plus European countries annexed or occupied by the Nazis will help us better understand these crimes and advance research and education in new ways.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to correct the date of the Fulda deportations.
Sweden launches sabotage probe after another data cable damaged in Baltic Sea
Another undersea data cable, this time connecting Sweden and Latvia, has been severed in the Baltic Sea, officials from both countries said Sunday. The incident prompted Sweden to launch a criminal probe into the matter and seize a "suspect vessel" headed for Russia.
Cable cuts on the bottom of the Baltic Sea have become more and more common in the past few months. In November, the Danish navy shadowed the Chinese bulk carrier Yi Peng 3 after Finland and Sweden opened investigations into suspected sabotage of two severed undersea telecoms cables.
Latvia said it had dispatched a warship on Sunday after damage to a fibre optic cable to Sweden that may have been “due to external factors”.
The navy said it had identified a “suspect vessel”, the Michalis San, which was near the location of the incident along with two other ships.
The Michalis San was headed for Russia, according to several websites tracking naval traffic.
Nations around the Baltic Sea are scrambling to bolster their defences after the suspected sabotage of undersea cables in recent months.
After several telecom and power cables were severed, experts and politicians accused Russia of orchestrating a hybrid war against the West as the two sides square off over Ukraine.
NATO earlier this month announced it was launching a new monitoring mission in the Baltic Sea involving patrol ships and aircraft to deter any attempts to target undersea infrastructure in the region.
“We have a warship patrolling the Baltic Sea around the clock every day and night, allowing us to quickly dispatch it once we learnt about the damage,” Latvian navy commander Maris Polencs said at a briefing Sunday.
Prime Minister Evika Silina said: “We have notified the Swedish authorities and are working together with them to assess the damage and its reason.” Data ‘disruption’
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said he had been in contact with Silina during the day.
“There is information suggesting that at least one data cable between Sweden and Latvia has been damaged in the Baltic Sea. The cable is owned by a Latvian entity,” he posted on X.
“Sweden, Latvia and NATO are closely cooperating on the matter. Sweden will contribute with relevant capabilities to the effort to investigate the suspected incident,” he added.
The damage occurred in Swedish territorial waters at a depth of at least 50 metres, officials said.
The cable belongs to Latvia’s state radio and television centre (LVRTC) which said in a statement that there had been “disruptions in data transmission services”.
The company said alternatives had been found and end users would mostly not be affected although “there may be delays in data transmission speeds”.
The statement added: “Based on current findings, it is presumed that the cable is significantly damaged due to external factors. LVRTC has initiated criminal procedural actions.”
European Union President Ursula von der Leyen expressed her “full solidarity” with the countries affected by the incident.
“The resilience and security of our critical infrastructure is a top priority,” von der Leyen wrote on X.
(AFP)
Sweden seizes ship suspected of Baltic Sea cable ‘sabotage’
Sweden's membership tightens NATO grip over the Baltic Sea -- but Russia still remains a threat - Copyright AFP FRED TANNEAU
Sweden on Sunday said it had seized a ship suspected of having damaged a fibre-optic cable under the Baltic Sea linking the country to Latvia, which sent a warship to investigate the latest apparent act of sabotage.
The latest incident came as nations around the Baltic Sea scramble to bolster their defences after the suspected sabotage of undersea cables in recent months, with some observers blaming Russia.
Swedish prosecutors opened an investigation into “aggravated sabotage”, according to a statement from the Scandinavian nation’s prosecutors’ office.
“A vessel suspected of having committed the sabotage has been seized,” the statement added.
Latvia’s navy earlier said it had identified a “suspect vessel”, the Michalis San, near the location of the incident along with two other ships.
Several websites tracking naval traffic said the Michalis San was headed for Russia.
“We have a warship patrolling the Baltic Sea around the clock every day and night, allowing us to quickly dispatch it once we learnt about the damage,” Latvian navy commander Maris Polencs said at a briefing Sunday.
Prime Minister Evika Silina said Riga had notified the Swedish authorities and that the two countries were working together in response to the incident.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson confirmed he had been in contact with Silina during the day.
“There is information suggesting that at least one data cable between Sweden and Latvia has been damaged in the Baltic Sea. The cable is owned by a Latvian entity,” he posted on X.
“Sweden, Latvia and NATO are closely cooperating on the matter,” he added.
– Data ‘disruption’ –
Experts and politicians have accused Russia of orchestrating a hybrid war against the West as the two sides square off over Ukraine.
“The damage to the Sweden-Latvia undersea data cable is the latest in a series of systemic incidents affecting EU critical infrastructure,” Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga said Sunday on X.
“We express solidarity with the affected EU partners. An increased NATO presence in the Baltic Sea is critical to countering such threats.”
NATO earlier this month announced it was launching a new monitoring mission in the Baltic Sea involving patrol ships and aircraft to deter any attempts to target undersea infrastructure in the region.
The damage occurred in Swedish territorial waters at a depth of at least 50 metres (55 yards), officials said.
The cable belongs to Latvia’s state radio and television centre (LVRTC) which said in a statement that there had been “disruptions in data transmission services”.
The company said alternatives had been found and end users would mostly not be affected although “there may be delays in data transmission speeds”.
The statement added: “Based on current findings, it is presumed that the cable is significantly damaged due to external factors. LVRTC has initiated criminal procedural actions.”
European Union President Ursula von der Leyen expressed her “full solidarity” with the countries affected by the incident.
“The resilience and security of our critical infrastructure is a top priority,” von der Leyen wrote on X.
burs-sbk/jj
Undersea cable between Sweden and Latvia damaged: Swedish PM
Latvian Prime Minister Evika Silina said they were working with Sweden to 'assess the damage and its reason' - Copyright AFP Douglas MAGNO
Latvia said it had dispatched a warship on Sunday after damage to a fibre optic cable to Sweden that may have been “due to external factors”.
The navy said it had identified a “suspect vessel”, the Michalis San, which was near the location of the incident along with two other ships.
Nations around the Baltic Sea are scrambling to bolster their defences after the suspected sabotage of undersea cables in recent months.
After several telecom and power cables were severed, experts and politicians accused Russia of orchestrating a hybrid war against the West as the two sides square off over Ukraine.
NATO earlier this month announced it was launching a new monitoring mission in the Baltic Sea involving patrol ships and aircraft. The aim is to deter any attempts to target undersea infrastructure in the region.
“We have a warship patrolling the Baltic Sea around the clock every day and night, allowing us to quickly dispatch it once we learnt about the damage,” Latvian navy commander Maris Polencs said at a briefing Sunday.
Prime Minister Evika Silina said: “We have notified the Swedish authorities and are working together with them to assess the damage and its reason.”
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said he had been in contact with Silina during the day.
“There is information suggesting that at least one data cable between Sweden and Latvia has been damaged in the Baltic Sea. The cable is owned by a Latvian entity,” he posted on X.
The damage occurred in Swedish territorial waters at a depth of at least 50 metres, officials said.
The cable belongs to Latvia’s state radio and television centre (LVRTC) which said there in a statement that there had been “disruptions in data transmission services”.
The company said alternatives had been found and end users would mostly not been affected although “there may be delays in data transmission speeds”.
The statement added: “Based on current findings, it is presumed that the cable is significantly damaged due to external factors. LVRTC has initiated criminal procedural actions.”
European Union President Ursula von der Leyen expressed her “full solidarity” with the countries affected by the incident.
“The resilience and security of our critical infrastructure is a top priority,” von der Leyen wrote on X.
WHY THE IMPERIALISTS TRIED TO WIPE THEM OUT
Gaddafi’s son Saif doubles down on Sarkozy funding claim, alleges pressure to retract Muammar Gaddafi’s former heir apparent has told FRANCE 24’s sister radio RFI that he was personally involved in giving Nicolas Sarkozy suitcases of cash ahead of his victorious 2007 presidential run. Saif al-Islam claims he was pressured to change his testimony by emissaries of the former French president, who is on trial over alleged campaign financing by Libya.
Muammar Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam (top left) gestures to troops loyal to his father in Tripoli in August 2011, months before the late dictator's fall.
Once seen as the respectable, media-friendly face of the Gaddafi regime, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the late Libyan dictator’s second son, has been an elusive figure since his father’s fall in 2011, held for years by a rebel group in a mountainous region southwest of Tripoli, before suddenly resurfacing to launch a short-lived presidential run.
In the chaotic 14 years since Gaddafi’s death, Saif al-Islam has spoken just once before with a foreign journalist, weeks before announcing his shot at the presidency in 2021. His written exchanges in Arabic with RFI’s Houda Ibrahim mark the first time he has agreed to touch on the Libyan funding allegations that have dogged Nicolas Sarkozy ever since Gaddafi’s demise.
The RFI journalist first reached out to Saif al-Islam on January 6, the day Sarkozy went on trial in Paris over allegations he accepted money from Libya’s Gaddafi to finance his successful 2007 presidential campaign. The former French president, who served from 2007 to 2012, is facing charges of passive corruption, illegal campaign financing, concealment of embezzlement of public funds and criminal association – punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
In his replies to RFI, Saif-al Islam reiterated his earlier allegations that Sarkozy accepted $5 million from the Gaddafi regime in two separate payments, the second of which he said he personally oversaw. He also claimed that members of the former president’s entourage had repeatedly pressured him to change his testimony in the run-up to the trial.
Sarkozy, 69, has vigorously denied the allegations and denounced a “plot” staged by “liars and crooks”, telling the court in Paris: “You will never find one Libyan euro, one Libyan cent in my campaign.” ‘Seal of vengeance’
With his London degrees, fluent English and polite manners, the handsome, bespectacled Saif al-Islam was once seen by many in the West as Libya’s best hope for reform after decades of autocratic rule under his quixotic father.
All that changed in 2011 with his wholehearted support for the Gaddafi regime’s brutal crackdown on Arab Spring protesters, which earned him the hatred of rebel groups and an arrest warrant for crimes against humanity issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
That warrant still stands, despite Saif al-Islam’s release from jail in 2017 under an amnesty law passed by one of two competing parliaments spawned by the civil war that followed Gaddafi’s fall.
When Saif-al-Islam last spoke to a Western media outlet in 2021, a decade after his father’s fall, the New York Times described his account of the roots of Libya’s 2011 conflict as “a confluence of long-simmering internal tensions and opportunistic foreign players, including President Nicolas Sarkozy”.
Early in his presidency, Sarkozy had invited Gaddafi to France for a state visit, becoming the first Western leader to do so since the Libyan strongman was ostracised in the 1980s over his role in terrorist attacks.
In 2011, however, he was among the first to push for a military intervention in Libya when pro-democracy protests swept the Arab world. Gaddafi was killed by opposition fighters in October that same year, ending his four-decade rule of the North African country.
As he went on trial this month, Sarkozy argued that the case against him was motivated by vengeance, pointing to the timing of allegations first made by a Libyan news agency in March 2011.
“Revelations about the alleged financing of my campaign came a few hours after my statement that ‘Gaddafi must go’,” he told the court. “What credibility can be given to such statements marked by the seal of vengeance?” A suitcase bursting with cash
The Libya funding trial involves 11 other defendants, including three former ministers. French investigators have scrutinized several trips to Libya made by people close to Sarkozy, then the interior minister, between 2005 and 2007, including his chief of staff Claude Guéant.
01:29
In his exchanges with RFI, Saif al-Islam said he personally oversaw a payment of $2.5 million to Guéant, claiming that Sarkozy had offered in exchange to overturn a French arrest warrant for Gaddafi’s brother-in-law Abdullah al-Senussi, who was found guilty in absentia of masterminding the 1989 bombing of French airliner DC10 UTA, in which 170 people died.
Saif al-Islam said the money was handed over in suitcases by Gaddafi’s former chief of staff and treasurer Bashir Saleh. Recalling an anecdote first told by Saleh, he noted that one suitcase was so stuffed with cash that Guéant had to stand on it, “which made everyone present laugh”.
A co-defendant in the trial, Gaddafi’s former treasurer sought refuge in France during the Libyan civil war, then moved to South Africa, where he survived a shooting in 2018, before settling in the United Arab Emirates. He has declined to appear in court.
Saif al-Islam added that Sarkozy personally contacted Senussi during a visit to Libya in 2005 and promised to remove him from the Interpol list once he was elected president. He claimed telephone records of the conversation were in Senussi’s possession, though French authorities have never been able to access them.
Hannibal approached
While Saif al-Islam had already detailed his account of the alleged payments in testimony sent to French investigators in 2018, his exchanges with RFI contain previously untold allegations of the pressure he claims Sarkozy’s entourage has exerted on him and his family since then.
Gaddafi’s son said he was first approached by Paris-based consultant Souha al-Bedri, alleging that she asked him to “deny everything that is being said about Libyan support for Sarkozy's campaign” in exchange for help with his appeal against the ICC warrant. He claimed another emissary for the former French president contacted his brother Hannibal, who has spent the past decade in jail in Beirut, promising to have him released if he persuaded his brother to change his testimony.
Saif al-Islam, who refused to identify a third purported Sarkozy emissary, said he “categorically rejected” all approaches.
Contacted by RFI, a lawyer for Hannibal Gaddafi confirmed that his client had been approached in 2022. Bedri, on the other hand, denied she passed on “such a message” to his older brother.
Meanwhile, Sarkozy’s lawyer Christophe Ingrain dismissed Saif al-Islam’s claims as “fanciful” and “unsubstantiated”, denouncing their “opportunistic” timing with the trial now underway.
“For 10 years he (Saif al-Islam) has been promising to hand over documents that would confirm these accusations. To date, nothing has been submitted to the procedure,” Ingrain told FRANCE 24’s sister radio. “So for me these accusations are simply fanciful bragging and have no importance.”
‘Sullied’
Ingrain repeated his client’s contention that such accusations were motivated by “vengeance”, coming from “a man who lost everything after the NATO intervention in Libya that was initiated by Sarkozy”.
The former French president was back in court this week, describing allegations he sealed a pact with Gaddafi in a tent in Tripoli as “grotesque”. Asked whether he had discussed campaign funding during his first meeting with the Libyan dictator in 2005, he said he felt “sullied to have to answer such questions”.
Sarkozy has been convicted in two other scandals, but the Libyan case is the one most likely to affect his legacy.
France’s highest court, the Court of Cassation, last month upheld a conviction of corruption and influence peddling while Sarkozy was head of state, sentencing him to one year under house arrest with an electronic bracelet.
That case was revealed as investigative judges were listening to wiretapped phone conversations during the Libya inquiry. Sarkozy’s latest trial is scheduled to run until April 10, with a verdict expected at a later date.
The Chinese interests behind Trump’s Panama Canal bluster
Analysis
Panama has begun an audit of a Hong Kong company that operates ports at either end of its canal, aiming to dispel Washington’s fears of growing Chinese influence over a strategic waterway that President Donald Trump has vowed to “take back”.
As he laid out his “America First” agenda in his inaugural address on Monday, Trump made no mention of his most talked-about territorial fancies, such as buying Greenland or making Canada the 51st US state.
He did, however, repeat his pledge to take over the Panama Canal, suggesting control of the strategic waterway has taken precedence over his other expansionist goals.
The US, which played a pivotal role in building the 51-mile canal more than a century ago, agreed to gradually hand it over to Panama back in 1977, in what Trump has labeled a “foolish” move.
To justify “taking it back”, the 47th US president reiterated his claim that the main link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans has come under Chinese influence.
“China is operating the Panama Canal and we didn’t give it to China,” he said. “We gave it to Panama and we’re taking it back.” Two ports and an audit
Panama swiftly hit back at Trump’s remarks, denying Chinese influence and denouncing the US president’s threats in a letter to the UN secretary-general.
“We reject in its entirety everything that Mr Trump has said,” Panama's President Jose Raul Mulino told a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos in Wednesday. “First because it is false and second because the Panama Canal belongs to Panama and will continue to belong to Panama.”
To counter allegations of Chinese influence, the Panamanian authorities announced “an exhaustive audit” of the Panama Ports Company, part of Hutchison Ports, itself a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based conglomerate CK Hutchison Holdings.
The controller’s office that oversees public entities said the audit was “aimed at ensuring the efficient and transparent use of public resources” at the company, which operates the ports of Balboa and Cristobal on either end of the canal.
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The audit “is one of the few things Panama’s authorities can do right now to try to counter Trump’s accusations and alleviate US concerns”, said Tabita Rosendal, a specialist of Chinese foreign policy at Lund University in Sweden, who has worked on the maritime aspect of China's “New Silk Roads”.
“It's a clever move by Panama’s authorities because they know that Hutchison Ports will comply and that the audit will most likely not reveal anything suspicious,” added Benjamin Creutzfeldt, a specialist in relations between China and Latin American countries at the University of Leipzig in Germany, and director of the local Confucius Institute.
A Hong Kong magnate
The Hong Kong-based company, which promised full cooperation on Wednesday, has already undergone a number of audits in recent years and has always complied with the exercise, both experts noted. It has operated the ports of Balboa and Cristobal since 1997 and secured a second 25-year lease in 2021, without it causing a fuss.
A giant of the industry, Hutchison Ports is not the type of company that could be easily manoeuvred by Chinese authorities.
“It’s one of the world’s leading port investors, with massive portfolios,” noted Rosendal. “They have interests in 53 ports worldwide and more than 24 countries.”
The company notably operates the port of Stockholm in Sweden, as well as five Dutch ports and a dozen more in the Middle East. Given the scale of its assets, any collusion with China’s geopolitical interest would surely not go unnoticed.
CK Hutchison Holdings, Hutchison Ports’ parent company, is one of the largest conglomerates registered in Hong Kong, a Chinese territory where companies still enjoy a degree of freedom despite Beijing’s political and security clampdown on the former British colony.
Describing the company’s Panama assets as a tool in the hands of Beijing “fits in perfectly with Trump’s narrative that Hong Kong firms are aligned with the Chinese government”, said Rodrigo Martin, whose research at the University of Salamanca in Spain has focused on relations between Panama, China and the US.
Li Ka-shing, the founder of CK Hutchison Holdings, was once the richest man in Asia and remains one of Hong Kong’s most influential figures. Rumour has it that “for every dollar spent in Hong Kong, five cents end up in Li Ka-shing's pockets”, French business daily La Tribune wrote in 2014.
Wealth and influence have enabled the likes of Li Ka-shing to “maintain a degree of freedom from Chinese Communist Party surveillance that you wouldn’t see elsewhere in China”, said Rosendal.
Nonetheless, Creutzfeldt argued that the business magnate’s significant assets in mainland China “mean the central government has, de facto, a degree of influence over his conglomerate and, indirectly, over how it manages its network of ports”.
A snub over Taiwan
Trump’s criticism of the way the Panama Canal is run rests in part on his unsubstantiated claim that US vessels are charged “exorbitant” fees compared to Chinese ones – a purported inequity that he blames on pressure from Beijing.
In truth Hutchison Ports “has no say whatsoever in how the canal is managed”, said Creutzfeld. “It’s Panama’s government, via the Panama Canal Authority, that sets the fees based on decades-old agreements of neutrality,” added Rosendal.
All ships transiting the canal are subject to the same tariff, regardless of their country of origin. Since 75% of all ships are American and only 21% from China, the canal’s second biggest customer, the US inevitably pays more overall.
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But Chinese influence in Panama does not stop at Hutchison Ports.
In recent years, China has spent billions of dollars developing infrastructure around the canal and elsewhere in Panama. In 2016, China’s Landbridge Group secured a $900-million contract to manage the port of Margarita, Panama’s largest, located not far from the Atlantic entrance to the canal.
The scale of Chinese investment shows that “Panama has become one of the most important countries for China’s strategy in Latin America”, said Martin. “It’s a gateway to the continent for China, both economically and diplomatically,” added Rosendal.
Beijing’s economic diplomacy delivered a symbolic victory in 2017 when Panama abruptly severed longstanding diplomatic ties with Taiwan.
The following year Panama became the first Latin American country to join China’s New Silk Road, becoming a key link in Beijing’s hugely ambitious global infrastructure programme.
Back to the Monroe Doctrine?
Panama’s move to ditch Taiwan and establish formal ties with China did not go down well with US officials.
“There was very tangible irritation in Washington with the way this was done, since US representatives were given little advance notice,” said Creutzfeldt. “And this continues to affect US relations with Panama.”
Another bone of contention is the “potential dual role of certain technologies that Chinese companies are deploying in Panama”, said Rosendal. She pointed to Huawei supplying the country with surveillance cameras that could, if Beijing wished to, be used to gather intelligence.
“There is not much concrete evidence that China is using them for surveillance, but the question of the risk to national security of this type of technology is certainly a concern for many countries,” she added.
Martin suggested that Trump’s threats could mark a return to the Monroe Doctrine, a 19th-century policy aimed at dissuading Europe’s colonial powers from interfering with the political affairs of the Americas.
In this case, the message would be that “Latin America is part of the US sphere of influence and that China should back off”, he said. “Perhaps the Panama Canal is just the first step towards building that narrative.”
The risk, Martin cautioned, is that Trump’s aggressive rhetoric backfires on the US.
“If Trump starts to threaten Panama’s security, maybe Panama will shift its support to China because Beijing is not a threat.”
This article was translated from the French original by Benjamin Dodman.
French PM Bayrou says Elon Musk is 'creating a threat to democracies'
French Prime Minister François Bayrou on Monday said that billionaire entrepreneur and owner of social media platform X Elon Musk creates a menace to democracies. His comments about Musk came after last week's warning that France and Europe must stand firm in the face of US President Donald Trump and his policies or risk being "crushed".
Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of social media network X and a close ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, poses a threat to democracies, French Prime Minister François Bayrou said on Monday.
"Elon Musk is creating a threat to democracies," Bayrou said in a local TV interview. "Money should not give the right to rule consciences."
Bayrou's comments about Musk come after he warned last week that France and Europe as a whole would have to stand up to Trump and his policies, or risk being "dominated ... crushed ... marginalised."
Musk, the CEO of Tesla and the world's richest person, has shown a willingness to weigh in on foreign political issues. He has endorsed a German anti-immigration party ahead of elections slated in February, and has repeatedly commented on British politics, demanding Prime Minister Keir Starmer resign.
EU challenges British ban on sandeel fishing aimed at protecting marine ecosystem Europe
The EU and Britain go to court at the Hague on Tuesday over a UK ban on the fishing of sandeels, a tiny fish celebrated by conservationists, in what is seen as a bellwether for other potential litigation between London and Brussels.
A tiny silver fish which is an important food source in the North Sea will take centre stage Tuesday as the European Union and Britain square off over post-Brexit fishing rights.
The bitter arbitration case over sandeels is seen as a bellwether for other potential litigation between London and Brussels in a perennial hot-bed industry, experts said.
Tuesday's clash at the Hague-based Permanent Court for Arbitration also marks the first courtroom trade battle between the 27-member trading bloc and Britain since it left the EU in 2020.
Brussels has dragged London before the PCA following a decision last year to ban all commercial fishing of sandeels in British waters because of environmental concerns.
London in March ordered all fishing to stop, saying in court documents that "sandeels are integral to the marine ecosystem of the North Sea".
Because of climate change and commercial fishing, the tiny fish "risked further decline... as well as species that are dependent on sandeels for food including fish, marine mammals, and seabirds".
This included vulnerable species like the Atlantic puffin, seals, porpoises and other fish like cod and haddock, Britain's lawyers said.
But Brussels is accusing London of failing to keep to commitments made under the landmark Trade and Cooperation Agreement, which gave the EU access to British waters for several years during a transition period after London's exit.
Under the deal, the EU's fishing fleet retained access to British waters for a five-and-half-year transition period, ending mid-2026. After that, access to respective waters will be decided in annual negotiations.
"The EU does not call into question the right of the UK to adopt fisheries management measures in pursuit of legitimate conservation objectives," Brussels' lawyers said in court papers.
"Rather, this dispute is about the UK's failure to abide by its commitments under the agreement."
London failed to apply "evidence-based, proportionate and non-discriminatory measures when restricting the right to EU vessels to full access to UK waters to fish sandeel", the EU lawyers said.
Brussels is backing Denmark in the dispute, whose vessels take some 96 percent of the EU's quota for the species, with sandeel catches averaging some £41.2 million (49 million euros) annually.
"The loss of access to fisheries in English waters could affect relations with the EU, including Denmark, as they are likely to lead to employment losses and business losses overseas," the EU's lawyers warned. 'Important issue'
The case will now be fought out over three days at the PCA's stately headquarters at the Peace Palace in The Hague, which also houses the International Court of Justice.
Set up in 1899, the PCA is the world's oldest arbitral tribunal and resolves disputes between countries and private parties through referring to contracts, special agreements and various treaties, such as the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
The EU's decision to open a case before the PCA "will not have been taken lightly and reflected the political importance it places on fishing rights", writes Joel Reland, a senior researcher at UK in a Changing Europe, a London-based think tank.
In a number of "influential member states -- including France, the Netherlands and Denmark -- fishing rights are an important issue, with many communities relying on access to British waters for their livelihoods".
"This dispute is an early warning that the renegotiation of access rights, before the TCA fisheries chapter expires in June 2026, will be critical for the EU," said Reland.
A ruling in the case is expected by the end of March.
(AFP)
DIY REVOLT
‘Taken for delinquents’: The French fishers refusing to hand in WWII shells
Nearly 30,000 tons of munitions were dropped in and around Brest harbour in western France during World War II, and the risk of dredging unexploded ammunition is constant for the fishing boats that operate in the surrounding waters. The fishers are supposed to collect and report any shells they find but, for the past two years, most have been throwing them straight back in the water – the result of a bitter dispute with the authorities.
MASS PROTESTS WORK!
Serbia's populist FASCIST PM Vucevic steps down after months of anti-corruption protests
Serbian Prime Minister Milos Vucevic announced his resignation on Tuesday following months of mass demonstrations triggered by the fatal collapse of a train station roof in November, which critics have blamed on rampant government corruption.
Serbia’s populist Prime Minister Milos Vucevic said Tuesday he is stepping down following weeks of massive anti-corruption protests over the deadly collapse of a concrete canopy in November.
The canopy collapse, which killed 15 people in the northern city of Novi Sad, has become a flashpoint reflecting wider discontent with the increasingly autocratic rule of Serbia’s populist President Aleksandar Vucic. He has faced accusations of curbing democratic freedoms in Serbia despite formally seeking European Union membership for the troubled Balkan nation.
Vucevic told a news conference that his resignation is aimed at lowering tensions in Serbia.
“It is my appeal for everyone to calm down the passions and return to dialogue," he said.
Novi Sad Mayor Milan Djuric also will step down on Tuesday, Vucevic said.
Vucevic’s resignation is likely to lead to an early parliamentary election. The resignation must be confirmed by Serbia’s parliament, which has 30 days to choose a new government or call a snap election.
On Monday, tens of thousands of people joined striking university students in a 24-hour blockade of a key traffic intersection in the Serbian capital. The students have been protesting for weeks, demanding accountability for the canopy collapse that critics have blamed on rampant government corruption.
In another attempt to defuse tensions, Vucic, Vucevic and Parliament Speaker Ana Brnabic on Monday evening urged dialogue with the students, who have garnered widespread support from all walks of life in Serbia with their call for justice and accountability.
Vucevic said the immediate cause for his quitting was an attack on a female student in Novi Sad early Tuesday by assailants allegedly from the ruling Serbian Progressive Party. Vucevic said that “whenever it seems there is hope to return to social dialogue, to talk ... it’s like an invisible hand creates a new incident and tensions mount again.”
Serbia’s prosecutors have filed charges against 13 people, including a government minister and several state officials. But the former Construction Minister Goran Vesic has been released from detention, fueling doubts over the investigation’s independence.
The main railway station in Novi Sad was renovated twice in recent years as part of a wider infrastructure deal with Chinese state companies.
Several incidents have marred the street demonstrations in the past weeks, including drivers ramming into the crowds on two occasions, when two young women were injured.
Students and others have been holding daily 15-minute traffic blockades throughout Serbia at 11:52 a.m., the exact same time the concrete canopy crashed down on Nov. 1. The blockades honor the 15 victims, including two children.
(AP)
Why Israel launched West Bank raids in the wake of Gaza's ceasefire
Days after Israel agreed a ceasefire with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military ramped up operations in the West Bank city of Jenin and beyond. Violence has also flared in the territory as masked gangs rampaged through Palestinian villages, hurling stones and setting fire to cars and property.
In the days since a fragile ceasefire took hold in the Gaza Strip, Israel has launched a major military operation in the occupied West Bank and suspected Jewish settlers have rampaged through two Palestinian towns.
The violence comes as Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu faces domestic pressure from his far-right allies after agreeing to the truce and hostage-prisoner exchange with the Hamas militant group.
U.S. President Donald Trump has, meanwhile, rescinded the Biden administration's sanctions against Israelis accused of violence in the territory.
It's a volatile mix that could undermine the ceasefire, which is set to last for at least six weeks and bring about the release of dozens of hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, most of whom will be released into the West Bank.
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, and Palestinians want all three territories for their future state. Escalations in one area frequently spill over, raising further concerns that the second and far more difficult phase of the Gaza ceasefire — which has yet to be negotiated — may never come.
Dozens of masked men rampaged through two Palestinian villages in the northern West Bank late Monday, hurling stones and setting cars and property ablaze, according to local Palestinian officials. The Red Crescent emergency service said 12 people were beaten and wounded.
Israeli forces, meanwhile, carried out a raid elsewhere in the West Bank that the military said was in response to the hurling of firebombs at Israeli vehicles. It said several suspects were detained for questioning, and a video circulating online appeared to show dozens being marched through the streets.
On Tuesday, the Israeli military launched another major operation, this time in the northern West Bank city of Jenin, where its forces have regularly clashed with Palestinian militants in recent years, even before Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack out of the Gaza Strip triggered the war there.
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At least nine Palestinians were killed on Tuesday, including a 16-year-old, and 40 were wounded, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. The military said its forces carried out airstrikes and dismantled roadside bombs and “hit” 10 militants — though it was not clear what that meant.
Palestinian residents have reported a major increase in Israeli checkpoints and delays across the territory.
Israel, meanwhile, says threats from the West Bank against its citizens are on the rise. Earlier this month, Palestinian gunmen opened fire on motorists there, killing three Israelis, including two women in their 70s. That attack fueled calls from settler leaders for a crackdown in the territory.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz cast the Jenin operation as part of Israel's larger struggle against Iran and its militant allies across the region, saying “we will strike the octopus' arms until they snap.”
The Palestinians view such operations and the expansion of settlements as ways of cementing Israeli control over the territory, where 3 million Palestinians live under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, with the Western-backed Palestinian Authority administering cities and towns.
Prominent human rights groups call it a form of apartheid since the over 500,000 Jewish settlers in the territory have all the rights conferred by Israeli citizenship. Israel rejects those allegations.
Netanyahu has been struggling to quell a rebellion by his ultranationalist coalition partners since agreeing to the ceasefire. The agreement requires Israeli forces to withdraw from most of Gaza and release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners — including militants convicted of murder — in exchange for hostages abducted in the Oct. 7 attack.
One coalition partner, Itamar Ben-Gvir, resigned in protest the day the ceasefire went into effect. Another, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, has threatened to bolt if Israel does not resume the war after the first phase of the ceasefire is slated to end in early March.
They want Israel to annex the West Bank and to rebuild settlements in Gaza while encouraging what they refer to as the voluntary migration of large numbers of Palestinians.
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Netanyahu still has a parliamentary majority after Ben-Gvir's departure, but the loss of Smotrich — who is also the de facto governor of the West Bank — would severely weaken his coalition and likely lead to early elections.
That could spell the end of Netanyahu's nearly unbroken 16 years in power, leaving him even more exposed to longstanding corruption charges and an expected public inquiry into Israel's failure to prevent the Oct. 7 attack.
Trump's return to the White House offers Netanyahu a potential lifeline.
The newly sworn-in president, who lent unprecedented support to Israel during his previous term, has surrounded himself with aides who support Israeli settlement. Some support the settlers' claim to a biblical right to the West Bank because of the Jewish kingdoms that existed there in antiquity.
The international community overwhelmingly considers settlements illegal.
Among the flurry of executive orders Trump signed on his first day back in office was one rescinding the Biden administration's sanctions on settlers and Jewish extremists accused of violence against Palestinians.
The sanctions — which had little effect — were one of the few concrete steps the Biden administration took in opposition to the close U.S. ally, even as it provided billions of dollars in military support for Israel's campaign in Gaza, among the deadliest and most destructive in decades.
Trump claimed credit for helping to get the Gaza ceasefire agreement across the finish line in the final days of the Biden presidency.
But this week, Trump said he was “not confident” it would hold and signaled he would give Israel a free hand in Gaza, saying: “It's not our war, it's their war.”
