Jailed Kremlin critic Kara-Murza's health failing: wife

Nina LARSON
Wed, May 17, 2023 

The wife of Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza voiced deep concern Wednesday at his failing health behind bars

The wife of Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza voiced deep concern Wednesday at his failing health behind bars, hailing his courage in the face of an act of "cynical vengeance" by Moscow.

"I am obviously concerned," Evgenia Kara-Murza said in an interview with AFP. "His health indeed is failing."

Her husband had serious health issues even before he was detained last year, suffering from a nerve condition called polyneuropathy which she said is due to two poisoning attempts in 2015 and 2017.

During the past year in pre-trial detention his condition has deteriorated significantly, she said, warning that with a harsh sentence now imposed, the situation would certainly worsen.

Kara-Murza, 41, was sentenced last month to 25 years in a high security prison on treason and other charges for criticising Russia's war in Ukraine.

He has appealed against the sentence -- the longest given to a Russian opposition figure in recent years -- but his wife said she "of course" expected it to be rejected.

She pointed out that Russian law barred the incarceration of people suffering from polyneuropathy, which can lead to paralysis, but that the "Russian authorities were not bothered by this".

- Aimed 'to kill' -

Speaking to AFP on the sidelines of the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy, Evgenia Kara-Murza voiced anger at her husband's sentence.

"It is pure and cynical vengeance by the Russian government," she said, pointing out that Kara-Murza's judge and the head of the prison where he is detained were subjected to sanctions that he had been pushing the United States and Europe to impose.

He contributed to the adoption of the Magnitsky Act, a US bill intending to punish Russian officials responsible for the death of Russian tax lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow prison in 2009.

"The regime clearly sees my husband as its personal enemy," she said.

"Twice in the past... our kids almost lost their father," she added, saying he was poisoned in attempts "to kill, not to threaten".

Despite the dangers, she said her husband had not hesitated to return to Russia and that she supported his decision.

"Of course it makes me scared for his life," she said, her dark eyes filling with tears, pointing out that "Vladimir and I have been carefully building our little world for years: our kids, our family."

"But I know what he's fighting for," she said, adding that "through all of these risks, through all of the attacks", he had remained "true to himself".

"If I accepted him the way he is over 20 years ago, it would be quite hypocritical of me to ask him to change now. That would not be Vladimir.

"The only option for me is to stand by him and fight with him and fight for him."

- 'Cracks' -

She acknowledged the situation was "excruciatingly painful" for the couple's three children, but said Kara-Murza "somehow manages to continue being a good father to them even from behind bars."

"He's teaching them a very valuable lesson: that they should face bullies with courage, that they should never give up without a fight, that they should accept the risks... acknowledge them, and still fight despite those risks."

Asked if she thought others would dare follow his example, she pointed to the "20,000 people arbitrarily detained" since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

That so many people had dared protest at a time when "the regime is using the entire arsenal of Soviet-style repressive techniques against anti-war protesters", she said, meant that "there are probably millions who are against the regime, but are afraid to speak up".

In the Soviet era, "mass protests only became possible when the regime started showing cracks", she pointed out, confident that "it will happen... when Putin's regime begins showing cracks".

As for when that might happen, she suggested a clear Ukrainian victory could, after "over two decades of impunity by Vladimir Putin's regime... finally send a signal to the Kremlin that it will not get away with committing such crimes anymore."

nl/rjm/lcm/mca

Private satellites give boost to public sector in climate fight

by Lucie AUBOURG

ESA's Sentinel-6 satellite, which tracks methane emissions across the globe.

From satellites that can pinpoint the sources of industrial pollution, to others that track hurricane movements by the hour, space has emerged as a key front in the fight against climate change.

New launches are—literally and metaphorically—skyrocketing, and giving rise to increased cooperation between space agencies and private companies.

Among the most fruitful areas of collaboration: tracking greenhouse gas emissions.

The potent planet heating gas methane is regularly measured in the atmosphere by one of the satellites of the European Union Space Programme's Copernicus mission.

The spacecraft scans the entire globe, but its resolution is in the order of several kilometers, making it hard to zero in on the exact source.

That's where private companies can step in.

One of them, the Canadian GHGSat, currently has nine small satellites in orbit, each the size of a microwave. Their mission: to fly over oil and gas sites, looking for methane leaks. By orbiting at a lower altitude, they can take a detailed look at each site.

"Think of it as the wide angle lens camera, versus the telephoto lens camera," Stephane Germain, the company's founder, told AFP. The Copernicus team is in constant touch with GHGSat, telling them where to point their cameras.

Canadian company GHGSat uses a group of small satellites to monitor methane emissions.

GHGSat then sells its information to oil companies, such as Total, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Shell.

"More and more companies are interested in that because they're realizing they have to better understand their own carbon footprints," said Germain, especially since their customers are insisting on better accounting of emissions' life cycles.

A common source of methane emissions are unlit flares, which are meant to burn off the gas.

GHGSat estimates it has prevented the equivalent of 10 megatons of carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere, equivalent to 1.3 million homes' energy use for a year.

Other companies plan to enter the sector, including France's Absolut Sensing. Another company, Kayrros, has no satellites of its own but is analyzing Copernicus data to track down the biggest leaks.

Technological advances

"The big picture shows you that there is a problem. And the small one then focuses in higher resolution and sells information to somebody. So this works very well together," European Space Agency director Josef Aschbacher said of such public-private partnerships to AFP.

NASA recently launched the SWOT mission to survey the Earth's surface water in 

unprecedented detail.

But government agency constellations—comprised of mostly large, very expensive satellites—remain the backbone of the Earth observation system.

Copernicus will soon enter a new era, with new missions such as CO2M measuring the carbon dioxide released specifically by human activities. NASA has about thirty Earth observation missions.

In the last six months alone, the US space agency has launched the SWOT mission to survey the Earth's surface water in unprecedented detail, TEMPO to measure pollutants in the troposphere above North America, and TROPICS, to track tropical weather systems, including hurricanes, hour by hour.

Advances in technology make it possible to measure today what was thought impossible just five or 10 years ago, said Aschbacher.

Better forecasts

In addition to these scientific missions, meteorological satellites, such as those overseen by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), play a vital role.

Their data, collected over decades, have revealed stark shifts to global climate systems: from warming sea and land temperatures to receding Antarctic ice sheets, helping feed the models climate science relies on today.

Hurricane Ian approaching Florida, as seen by a NOAA satellite.

But increasingly, they can also help play a major role in adapting to a heating world. To mitigate the impact of increasingly frequent natural disasters, "you've got to provide better forecasts," NOAA's chief scientist Mitch Goldberg told AFP.

The agency has been increasing its partnerships with the private sector. For example, it has teamed up with the company GeoOptics to collect information on the humidity or the temperature of the atmosphere.

According to a report by Inmarsat and Globant, if current satellite technologies were universally adopted, they could reduce carbon emissions by 5.5 gigatons—quadrupling current reductions of 1.5 gigatons enabled by the sector.

These savings could be achieved by, for example, helping the aviation and maritime sectors decarbonize through voyage optimization, weather routing and air traffic control management.

© 2023 AFP

New Space satellite pinpoints industrial methane emissions

Scent of tradition lingers in Lebanon's 'village of roses'

Elisa Amouret
Wed, May 17, 2023 

The oil derived from the famed Damask rose is a staple of perfumers, while rose water is used across the Middle East

On a gentle slope looking out over Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, villagers work their way across pink-dotted terraces, gathering perfumed Damask roses that are used for essential oils, sweets and cosmetics.

The rose harvest "gives you a bit of hope, it makes things beautiful, it calms you down -- it gives you strength to carry on", said Leila al-Dirani, picking the flowers from her family's land in the village of Qsarnaba.

A soft bag tied around her waist and her hands scratched from the thorns, the 64-year-old plucks the small, pink buds from their bushes as their rich and heady scent wafts across the hill.



The oil derived from the famed Damask rose --- named after the ancient city of Damascus located just across the mountain range separating Lebanon and Syria -- is a staple of perfumers.

Experts swear by the flower's therapeutic properties in fighting infection and as a relaxant, while rose water is used across the Middle East both as a refreshing drink, in sweets such as Turkish delight, to scent mosques and even to bestow luck at weddings.

After a morning collecting roses, the workers in Qsarnaba drop their fragrant bundles at a warehouse in the village where they are paid based on their harvest.

At the facility carpeted with pink petals, Zahraa Sayed Ahmed -- whose first name means "flower" -- buys the raw materials to produce her rose water, syrup, tea and jam.

Around four years ago, she set up a small workshop at her house, using a traditional metal still that "belonged to my grandfather", said Sayed Ahmed, 37.

- 'Roses help put food on the table' -

With a kilogramme (2.2 pounds) of rose petals, she said she can make up to half a litre of rose water.

She then also bottles and labels her modest production by hand, putting it on limited sale locally.

"The production of rose water is a part of our heritage," said Sayed Ahmed. "In every home in Qsarnaba there is a still, even if it's just a small one."

The rose season only lasts a few weeks, but it is a busy time for Qsarnaba's residents.

"This year is the first year that we didn't bring workers to help us because the production is low and we couldn't afford it," said Hassan al-Dirani, 25, who has been picking the flowers alongside his mother, Leila.

Since late 2019, Lebanon has been grappling with a devastating economic crisis that has seen the local currency collapse and pushed most of the population into poverty.

"The rose harvest and all other harvests have lost about 80 percent of their value... because of the economic crisis," said local official Daher al-Dirani, who hails from the extended family that is the biggest in Qsarnaba.

"But the roses help people put food on the table," he added.

Exported from Syria to Europe for centuries since the time of the Crusades, the ancient Damask rose is also cultivated in countries including France, Morocco, Iran and Turkey.

"Our village produces the most roses out of any village in Lebanon" and more than half of the country's rose water, Sayed Ahmed claimed proudly, as the captivating scent lingered in the air.

"Qsarnaba is the village of roses."

ea/lg/aya/ami

'Could Be Your City': A Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Survivor's Warning

By Sara HUSSEIN

May 17, 2023

Masao Ito, 82, is one of a dwindling number of 'hibakusha', survivors of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945

Richard A. Brooks

On August 6, 1945, four-year-old Masao Ito was riding a tricycle near his home in Hiroshima when a bomb fell from the sky and changed his life forever.

He survived the US nuclear attack and made it home to his mother, but the horror was just beginning.

His father, at work closer to the centre of the western Japanese city, searched the post-apocalyptic landscape for Ito's 12-year-old brother.

When he found the boy, he was so badly burned that Ito's parents refused to let their four-year-old see his brother, who died several days later at home.

Ito's 10-year-old sister had been at a relative's house, which was destroyed without a trace.

"People escaping the hypocentre headed towards the outskirts, where our house was. They had terrible burns and could hardly walk," the 82-year-old told AFP.

His parents invited the survivors to rest in their home. "But they died, one after another."

In the August heat, the bodies had to be moved, but there was no cemetery to take them to.

"They were moved to an open space, not even in caskets but placed one on top of another. Kerosene was poured over them to burn them," Ito said.

The scene is one he doesn't talk about often, but it remains visceral more than seven decades later.

"It was just horrible, a horrible smell," he said.

"It's a scene I really wish I could forget."

A retired bank employee, Ito has worked for almost two decades as a volunteer guide for the peace memorials and museum in Hiroshima, and as an anti-nuclear campaigner.


Atomic bomb survivor Masao Ito has worked for almost two decades as a volunteer guide for the peace memorials and museum in Hiroshima

Richard A. Brooks

He is one of a dwindling number of hibakusha, survivors of the atomic bombings in the last year of World War II that killed around 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 74,000 in Nagasaki.

This week, leaders of the G7 developed economies will meet in Hiroshima, and are expected to visit the Peace Memorial Park and speak to hibakusha.

He said he would warn them: "If you have nuclear weapons, you may be tempted to use them, and accidents can happen."


"It's simply better not to have them," added Ito, who wears large glasses and a pin depicting a bent missile with an anti-nuclear symbol over it.

He acknowledges that a world without nuclear weapons might seem impossibly idealistic, particularly as Russia makes thinly veiled threats about using the weapons, and North Korea continues missile tests.

But he believes holding the summit in Hiroshima can send world leaders a powerful message.

"As long as there are nuclear weapons in the world, there is a possibility that your city could become like Hiroshima."

"Is that really something you are willing to accept?"

Ito's childhood was shattered by the bomb: his father died of radiation poisoning, and the family business collapsed into bankruptcy.


An anti-nuclear symbol is seen pinned on the jacket of atomic bomb survivor Masao Ito in HiroshimaRichard A. Brooks

He and his mother fled Hiroshima to escape their debts, and he contracted tuberculosis, spending over a year in a sanitorium, where he received a US care package containing medicine and a Bible.

He read it, but when he encountered the line beseeching Christians to "love your enemies", he was so angry he threw the book against a wall.

"My enemy was the Americans... Why in the world should I love America?" he recalled thinking.

Ito would later convert to Christianity but his anger did not fade.

When he began offering peace tours, he felt discomfort with the inscription on the Hiroshima cenotaph: "Let all the souls here rest in peace, for we shall not repeat the evil."

"I felt I should promise to avenge the souls of those who died so they could find peace."

With time though, and especially as he met Americans who were devastated by what they learned in Hiroshima, his feelings changed and he "started to understand finally" what the Bible phrase meant.


His tour groups include school children, who he feels have a particularly important role.

"I can't continue forever. I tell students, it's your turn now to... achieve a world free of nuclear weapons."

© Agence France-Presse

China's Xi hails 'new era' of ties with Central Asia at summit

PATRIARCHY & MISOGYNY WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS

Ludovic EHRET
Thu, May 18, 2023

Map showing Central Asia countries. China's President Xi Jinping will host a two-day summit with the leaders of five Central Asian leaders in Xi'an starting May 18.

Chinese President Xi Jinping hailed a "new era" of ties with Central Asia on Thursday, kicking off a summit Beijing hopes will deepen relations with the strategically vital region.

Held in the ancient Chinese city of Xi'an, the historic eastern end of the Silk Road that linked China to Europe through Central Asia, Beijing has said this week's meeting is of "milestone significance".

And in a speech to the region's leaders at a welcoming banquet Thursday evening, Xi said strengthening ties was a "strategic choice".

"I am confident that with our joint efforts, tomorrow's summit will be a full success and will herald a new era of China-Central Asia relations," Xi was quoted as saying in a readout of the speech seen by AFP.

"Join us in opening up a bright future of China-Central Asia cooperation," he said.

This week's meeting is the first of its kind since the establishment of formal relations 31 years ago.

Beijing says trade with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan reached $70 billion in 2022 and expanded 22 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2023.

Central Asia has also become key to China's trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative, a defining geopolitical project for Xi, with Beijing keen to restart cooperation and fill the vacuum left in former Soviet states by Russia's war in Ukraine.

China, the world's second-largest energy consumer, has invested billions of dollars to tap natural gas reserves in Central Asia, while rail links connecting China to Europe criss-cross the region.

Analysts told AFP this week's summit is likely to see efforts to reach agreements to further expand that vast network, including a long-stalled $6 billion China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway and an expansion of the Central Asia-to-China gas pipeline.

- 'Global economic leadership' -

Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev hailed the "unique scope" of that project at a meeting with Xi ahead of the summit.

Xi also told Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov in talks on Thursday that China was "willing to work with Kyrgyzstan to build a community of good neighborliness, friendship, shared prosperity, and a shared future".

He then met with the leaders of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, lauding the close ties between them and pledging to expand economic and cultural exchanges.

"Your policies will ensure the development and further prosperity of a modern socialist state, the strengthening of the authority and the global economic leadership of the country in the nearest future," Uzbekistan President Shavkat Mirziyoyev told Xi.

Xi and Chinese first lady Peng Liyuan greeted the heads of state at a grand welcoming ceremony in the evening, posing for a group photo in front of an old-style Chinese building lit by red lanterns.

Dozens of dancers then performed a musical show inspired by the Tang Dynasty, when relations between China and Central Asia were considered very strong.

A media event will be held on Friday morning, expected to be attended by all six presidents, at which a joint statement is likely to be released.

- Growing influence -

This week's summit also comes as Beijing works to replace Russia as Central Asian nations' preferred partner -- and as Xi positions himself as a global statesman keen to expand China's reach far beyond its borders.

"Xi will position himself as a leader that can promote global development and peace," Zhiqun Zhu, a Professor of International Relations and Political Science at Bucknell University, told AFP.

The summit also coincides with a meeting of the G7 in Hiroshima that will likely focus on efforts to "push back China's growing influence around the world", Zhu said.

"The diplomatic and strategic significance cannot be underestimated," he said.

ehl-oho/pbt

CCP = GOP

Library books should not have 'unhealthy ideas': Hong Kong leader

AFP
Wed, May 17, 2023 

A women looks at books in a public library in Hong Kong

Hong Kong must not "recommend books with unhealthy ideas", the city's leader John Lee said on Thursday, following the removal of library books related to the deadly Tiananmen Square crackdown and other political issues.

The finance hub has undergone huge legal and political changes since Beijing imposed a national security law on the territory in 2020, silencing dissent following massive, and at times violent, pro-democracy protests the year before.

The latest measure comes after a prominent political cartoonist -- whose work often satirised Hong Kong's relationship with mainland China -- was suspended indefinitely from publishing in a mainstream newspaper, and his books were removed from the city's libraries over the past week.

The flash removal prompted Hong Kong journalists to comb the public library department's database for books on other politically sensitive issues -- including the 1989 Tiananmen Square bloody crackdown against peaceful protesters -- discovering dozens of titles were missing.

Lee defended the apparent removal of politically sensitive materials, saying the books found in Hong Kong's public libraries "are those we recommend for the residents".

"We must not recommend any books that are unlawful, that violate copyrights, that contain unhealthy ideas," he said.

"The government is obliged not to recommend books with unhealthy ideas."

The former security chief did not specify how the government defined "unhealthy ideas", nor when the books were removed, but added that residents could still find the literature "in your own way and read them".

Since the enactment of the national security law, Hong Kong has seen its autonomy eroded, despite Beijing's promise to uphold it after Britain's handover in 1997.

Room for expression of overt political differences has shrunk, with the territory's courts, legal procedures and cultural spheres irrevocably altered.

An annual vigil commemorating the Tiananmen Square crackdown had drawn thousands to Hong Kong's Victoria Park every year in a vivid illustration of the city's former political freedoms.

But it was banned in 2020, and the vigil's organisers have been charged with "incitement to subversion" under the security law.

hol-dhc/dhw/sco

Tunisian president evokes 'tolerance' after synagogue attack

IN A POLICE STATE; WHERE WERE THE POLICE

AFP
Thu, May 18, 2023 

Tunisian President Kais Saied (L) greeting his country's Chief Rabbi Haim Bittan following a deadly shooting attack

Tunisian President Kais Saied has hosted Jewish, Muslim and Christian leaders following a deadly mass shooting outside a local synagogue, telling them Tunisia was a country of "tolerance and coexistence".


The May 9 attack on the resort island of Djerba killed five people and sparked panic during an annual Jewish pilgrimage at the historic Ghriba synagogue, Africa's oldest.

The interfaith meeting on Wednesday "attests to the tolerance and coexistence that have characterised Tunisia for centuries", Saied said, according to a video released by the presidency.

It included Tunisia's Grand Rabbi Haim Bittan, Mufti Hichem ben Mahmoud and Archbishop Ilario Antoniazzi.

The gunman, a police officer, killed three other officers and two worshippers, a French-Tunisian and an Israeli-Tunisian man, before being shot dead himself by police.

During the meeting, Saied said a probe was underway to determine whether the shooter had any accomplices.

Four people linked to the gunman and suspected of involvement in the attack have so far been arrested, the private Mosaique FM radio reported late Wednesday.

Tunisian officials have denounced the attack as "criminal" but refrained from referring to it as a "terrorist" operation which would imply anti-Semitic motives.

Saied told the religious leaders on Wednesday that the attack sought to "undermine Tunisia and its stability, and sow discord and division".

"You can live in peace, and we will guarantee your safety", he said, addressing the Jewish community.

Saied noted a "distinction between Judaism and Zionism", rejecting any "normalisation" with Israel and calling on the international community to "put an end to the tragedy of the Palestinian people".

Rabbi Bittan called the meeting "excellent" and said he had received "guarantees that what happened (in Djerba) would not repeat".

The pilgrimage to Ghriba is at the heart of Jewish tradition in Tunisia, where only about 1,500 members of the faith still live -- mainly on Djerba -- compared with around 100,000 before independence in 1956.

The Ghriba pilgrimage was previously targeted in a 2002 suicide truck bombing that killed 21 people and was claimed by Al-Qaeda.

LESE MAJESTE IS TYRANNY

Thailand’s Move Forward Party takes on biggest political taboo

AFP Published May 19, 2023

BANGKOK: After shocking Thailand’s military-backed elite with a historic election breakthrough, the Move Forward Party now wants to take on the nation’s biggest political taboo — laws on insulting the monarchy.

However, MFP leader Pita Limjaroenrat’s determination to modify the lese-majeste laws protecting King Maha Vajiralongkorn has quickly emerged as a key issue that could block his path to power.

The monarchy has long had an exalted status in Thai society, and is shielded from criticism by section 112 of the penal code, which punishes infractions with jail terms of up to 15 years.

Posters of the king are ubiquitous, from shops and homes to public buildings and motorway billboards, and cinema-goers are expected to stand for the royal anthem before screenings.

But youth-led pro-democracy demonstrators in 2020 breached the taboo against public discussion of the monarchy’s status, with some protesters calling for the king’s power and spending to be reined in.

MFP channelled the reforming zeal of the protest movement in its campaign for Sunday’s election, pledging to limit who can bring lese-majeste charges and to cut the maximum sentence.

Tough laws

Section 112 outlaws defaming, insulting or threatening the king or certain members of his family.

But its interpretation has expanded to include almost any criticism, whether in public or on social media, including even indirect or light-hearted references.

Since the 2020 protests erupted more than 200 people have been prosecuted, including minors, some for seemingly trivial transgressions.

MFP proposes to cut the maximum sentence for lese-majeste and restrict who can bring charges — at the moment it can be done by anyone, and ultra-royalists are known to trawl social media looking for potential complaints to file.

Pita insists the changes are needed to heal rifts in Thai society, and that Move Forward will not eradicate the law. “We want to amend, not abolish, act 112, which can be done in the parliament,” he said.

“We would like to talk maturely in the parliament, and we will do it slowly but surely and thoroughly.” But in the past the army has used even the suggestion of disloyalty to the crown as grounds to launch a coup.

The generals ousted elected governments in 2006 and 2014, promising both times to get tough on elements threatening the monarchy. And the current, military-written constitution makes it extremely difficult for Pita to become prime minister, even though Move Forward won the most seats.

MFP and rival opposition party Pheu Thai are working on a multi-party coalition that would give them more than 300 out of 500 lower house seats.

But to secure the prime minister’s job the coalition needs a majority across both houses — including the Senate.

The 250 members of the Senate — monarchist, pro-military arch-conservatives, hand-picked by Prayut’s junta — are threatening to block Pita’s bid for the job.

“I disapprove despite the number of MPs he gathered,” Senator Jadet Inswang said.

“I will not accept Pita as a PM because he... has previously said that he would abolish 112. I can’t accept.”

Cycle of unrest

But given the results of the election, the issue is now part of the political debate regardless of whether Pita becomes prime minister, according to Napon Jatusripitak, a political scientist and researcher at the Yusof Ishak Institute.

Published in Dawn, May 19th, 2023

MAY KALI REST HIS SOUL

UK's Richest Family Patriarch Srichand Hinduja Dead At 87

By AFP - Agence France Presse

May 18, 2023

Srichand Hinduja, the tycoon who headed Britain's richest family, has died at the age of 87, a spokesman said.

Hinduja had dementia and his plight had become the centre of a family feud that culminated in court proceedings about whether he should be taken into public care.

The eldest of four brothers behind the Hinduja Group conglomerate, he died on Wednesday, according to a family spokesman.

He "passed away peacefully" and was "looked after" by relatives, the spokesman said, hailing him as a "visionary titan of industry and business".

The Hindujas topped the Sunday Times Rich List in 2022 with a fortune estimated at £28.4 billion ($35.4 billion).

But a London judge said that despite the vast means at their disposal, Hinduja's needs had become "marginalised" by the family dispute, according to court filings that emerged in November.

The family said they had settled their differences.

The conglomerate was founded by the brothers' father Parmanand Hinduja who traded in tea and dried fruit in Mumbai in 1919 before moving it to Iran.

The brothers took over in the 1960s and greatly expanded the business.

The sprawling Hinduja Group -- led by London-based Srichand and Gopichand -- grew to span interests in power, oil and gas, banking, and healthcare.

Srichand Hinduja was thrust into the UK media spotlight in the late 1990s amid accusations that a leading member of Tony Blair's government had improperly lobbied to gain him British citizenship.

jit/ach

Moldova, fearing Russia, wants to join EU 'as soon as possible'

Marc PREEL and Marc BURLEIGH
Thu, May 18, 2023 

For Moldovan President Maia Sandu, EU membership is the only guarantee against becoming Russia's next target

Moldova wants EU membership "as soon as possible" as protection against a threat from Russia and hopes for a decision to start negotiations "in the next months," President Maia Sandu told AFP in an interview.

The small nation of 2.6 million people, nestled between EU neighbour Romania and war-ravaged Ukraine, will on June 1 hold its first major summit of wider Europe.

That gathering of the European Political Community -- a forum created last year that brings together leaders of all 27 EU countries with 20 neighbours of the bloc -- will be an occasion for Moldova to burnish its candidate credentials.

For Sandu, EU membership is the only guarantee against becoming Russia's next target.

Her country, a former Soviet republic, already has a breakaway region, Transnistria, where Russia has stationed a small number of troops.

"Of course, nothing compares to what is happening in Ukraine, but we see the risks and we do believe that we can save our democracy only as part of the EU," she said.

"We do believe that Russia will continue to be a big source of instability for the years to come and we need to protect ourselves," added Sandu, on the sidelines of a Council of Europe of summit in Iceland that wrapped up on Tuesday.

The 50-year-old leader, in office since 2020, in February accused Russia of fomenting a coup to try to seize power in Moldova.

She has called for Moldovans -- who polls show are overwhelmingly behind joining the European Union -- to hold a pro-EU rally on Sunday.

"The Ukraine war made things black and white. So it's very clear what the free world means, and what the authoritarian world means, for all of us," she said.

- 'Realistic project' -

Russia's war next door suddenly firmed up the prospect of EU membership for Ukraine and Moldova.

Both countries applied last year to join the bloc and in June 2022 became candidate countries, along with Georgia.

"We do believe that this is a realistic project for us and we are looking forward to see this happening as soon as possible," Sandu said.

Membership, however, could take a decade or more to attain, given the long list of requirements candidate countries must meet to be able to sit alongside the other nations in the European single market.

Unlike Ukraine, Moldova is small enough to be able to be integrated into the European Union relatively easily.

But it faces several challenges to bring its democratic standards up to EU levels, notably in terms of fighting corruption.

Its fragile economy, energy security and the issue of Transnistria, with its 30,000 pro-Russian population, all need to be addressed as well.

Transnistria, in the east of Moldova, is not recognised by the international community. The zone sprang up in 1990 after a brief civil war that erupted when the Soviet Union collapsed, and ended up from 1992 as a frozen conflict.

"We are struggling to have peaceful resolution of the conflict, and we've been calling on Russia to withdraw its illegally stationed troops," Sandu said.

"We need a geopolitical opportunity to be able to solve the conflict."

The president, who has started the process of taking her country out of the Russia-dominated Commonwealth of Independent States, added: "What kind of relations can you have with a regime which kills innocent people in the neighbouring country?"

Moldova was ready to cooperate only with "democratic countries, with countries which respect the territorial integrity of other countries, which respect the international rules based system," she said.

Russia brandished Ukraine's desire to one day join NATO as one of its justifications for invading its neighbour.

For Moldova, that is not a door on which it is about to knock.

Moldova was not rethinking its stance of being a neutral country for now, Sandu said.

"But there are discussions in our society about whether neutrality protects us and if at some point people will change their view, of course we will reconsider this decision. In the meantime, we are trying to consolidate the defence sector of Moldova and we are counting on our friends."

For "friends" Moldova is leaning heavily on the other participating countries of the European Political Community.

The June 1 summit in Chisnau, Sandu said, "is important because we see that we are not alone, that we have many friends".

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