Day: March 25, 2023

Pope Francis has updated a 2019 church law aimed at holding senior churchmen accountable for covering up cases of sexual abuse, expanding it to cover lay Catholic leaders and reaffirming that vulnerable adults can also be victims of abuse when they are unable to consent.

Francis reaffirmed and made permanent on Saturday the temporary provisions of the 2019 law that were passed in a moment of crisis for the Vatican and Catholic hierarchy.

That law had been praised at the time for laying out precise mechanisms to investigate complicit bishops and religious superiors, but its implementation has been uneven and the Vatican has been criticised by abuse survivors for continued lack of transparency about the cases.

The new rules conform to other changes in the Catholic Church’s handling of abuse that have been issued since then. Most significantly, they are expanded to cover leaders of Vatican-approved associations headed by lay leaders, not just clerics. That is a response to the many cases that have come to light in recent years of lay leaders abusing their authority to sexually exploit people under their spiritual care or authority.

They also reaffirm that even adults can be victims of predator priests, such as nuns or seminarians who are dependent on their bishops or superiors. Church law previously considered that only adults who “habitually” lack the use of reason can be considered victims alongside minors.

The new law makes clear that adults can be rendered vulnerable to abuse even occasionally, as situations present themselves. That is significant given resistance in the Vatican to expanding its abuse rules to cover adults.

It states that a vulnerable person is “any person in a state of infirmity, physical or mental deficiency, or deprivation of personal liberty which, in fact, even occasionally, limits their ability to understand or to want or otherwise resist the offense.”

Francis originally set out the norms in 2019 as a response to the latest chapter in the decades-long crisis, focused on a cover-up exposed by a Pennsylvania grand jury report and the scandal over then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.

Francis himself was implicated in that wave of the scandal, after he dismissed claims by victims of a notorious predator in Chile.

After realising he had erred, Francis ordered up a wholescale review of the Chilean abuse dossier, summoned the presidents of all the world’s bishops conferences to Rome for a four-day summit on safeguarding and set in motion plans for a new law to hold senior churchmen to account for abuse and coverup, and to mandate that all cases be reported in-house.

The law and its update on Saturday contain explicit norms for investigating bishops accused of abuse or cover-up — a direct response to the McCarrick case, given it was well-known in Vatican circles and in some US church circles.

The law contained precise timelines to initiate investigations if allegations were well-founded, and that has been retained with some modifications.

The law also mandates all church personnel to report allegations of clergy abuse in-house, though it refrains from mandating reporting to the police. The new law expands whistleblower protections and reaffirms the need to protect the reputation of those accused.

Survivors have long complained that the Vatican for decades turned a blind eye to bishops and religious superiors who covered up cases of abuse, moving predator priests around from parish to parish rather than reporting them to police.

The 2019 law attempted to respond to those complaints, but victims have faulted the Holy See for continued secrecy about the investigations and outcomes.

Source: TRTworld.com

French police again have clashed with protesters as campaigners in the southwest sought to stop the construction of giant water storage facilities, the latest flashpoint as social tensions erupt nationwide.

The violent scenes at Sainte-Soline came on Saturday after days of unrest over President Emmanuel Macron’s pensions reform, which forced the cancellation of a visit by King Charles III of the UK.

The protest movement against the pension reform has turned into the biggest domestic crisis of Macron’s second mandate, with police and protesters clashing daily in Paris and other cities over the past week.

At Sainte-Soline, several protesters and members of security forces were injured in Saturday’s confrontations at the banned protest.

Campaigners there are trying to stop the construction of giant water “basins” to irrigate crops, which they say will distort access to water amid drought conditions.

A long procession of activists set off late morning for the site, numbering at least 6,000 people according to local authorities — around 30,000 according to the organisers.

“While the country is rising up to defend pensions, we will simultaneously stand up to defend water,” said the organisers.

Once they arrived at the construction site, which was defended by the police and gendarmes, clashes quickly broke out between the more radical activists and the security forces, the AFP news agency correspondents said.

The authorities had mobilised more than 3,000 police officers and paramilitary gendarmes to guard the site.

Protesters threw various projectiles, including improvised explosives, while police responded with tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets.

‘Chaos reigns in France’

According to the latest figures from the prosecutor’s office, seven demonstrators were injured, including three who had to be taken to hospital.

In addition, 28 gendarmes were injured, two of them badly enough that they had to be hospitalised.

Two journalists were also injured.

The alliance of activist groups behind the protests said 200 of their number had been injured, and one of them was fighting for their life, information not confirmed by the authorities.

In a tweet supporting the work of the emergency services there, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne denounced “the intolerable wave of violence” at Sainte-Soline.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin also condemned the violence, blaming elements from the “ultra-left and the extreme left”.

Eleven people were detained after police seized cold weapons, including petanque balls and meat knives, as well as explosives.

While not directly related to the anti-pensions reform campaign, the clashes over the water reservoir construction have added to tensions in an increasingly challenging situation for the government.

The government is bracing for another difficult day on Tuesday when unions are due to hold another round of strikes and protests. That would have fallen on the second full day of Charles’s visit.

The recent scenes in France have sparked astonishment abroad. “Chaos reigns in France,” said the Times of London above a picture of rubbish piling up.

Macron’s ‘inflexibility’

Uproar over legislation to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 was inflamed when Macron exercised a controversial executive power to push the plan through parliament without a vote last week.

Macron has refused to offer concessions, saying in a televised interview Wednesday that the changes needed to “come into force by the end of the year”.

The Le Monde daily said Macron’s “inflexibility” was now worrying even “his own troops” among the ruling party.

In another sign of the febrile atmosphere, the leader of Macron’s faction in parliament, Aurore Berge, posted on Twitter a handwritten letter she received threatening her four-month-old baby with physical violence, prompting expressions of solidarity across the political spectrum.

Borne is under particular pressure.

But she told a conference on Saturday: “I will not give up on building compromises…

“I am here to find agreements and carry out the transformations necessary for our country and for the French,” she said.

Source: TRTworld.com

More than 5,000 former criminals have been pardoned after finishing their contracts to fight in Russia’s Wagner mercenary group against Ukraine, the founder of Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said.

Prigozhin emerged from the shadows and recruited thousands of men from prisons, offering them the chance of freedom in return for serving in some of the most dangerous battles in Ukraine.

“At the present time, more than 5,000 people have been released on pardon after completing their contracts with Wagner,” Prigozhin said in an audio clip posted on Telegram.

Prigozhin said just 0.31 percent of those pardoned after Wagner service had gone on to commit crime, a figure he said was 10-20 times less than the standard indicators.

Russia has struck a deal with neighbouring Belarus to station tactical nuclear weapons on its territory, TASS news agency quoted President Vladimir Putin as saying.

Such a move would not violate nuclear nonproliferation agreements, Putin said, adding that the United States had stationed nuclear weapons on the territory of European allies.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has long raised the issue of stationing tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, which borders Poland, Putin said.

“We agreed with Lukashenko that we would place tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus without violating the nonproliferation regime,” TASS quoted Putin as saying.

Britain’s Defence Ministry has said in its latest intelligence update that “Russia’s assault on the Donbass town of Bakhmut has largely stalled. This is likely primarily a result of extreme attrition of the Russian force.”

Russia is likely shifting its focus toward two other sectors, which “suggests an overall return to a more defensive operational design after inconclusive results from its attempts to conduct a general offensive since January,” the UK ministry wrote on Twitter.

However, the Ukrainian military cautioned that a change in strategy was not yet clear and that Bakhmut remained Russia’s main point of attack for now.

In a phone call with his Russian counterpart, Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reiterated the need for “immediate cessation” of the Ukraine conflict.

Erdogan conveyed to Putin “the importance Türkiye attaches to the immediate cessation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict through negotiations,” the Turkish Communications Directorate said in a statement.

He also thanked Putin for his “positive stance regarding the extension of the Black Sea Grain Initiative.”

Polish ammunition maker Dezamet, a unit of state arms producer Polska Grupa Zbrojeniowa (PGZ), will substantially boost capacity to supply EU-funded ammunition to Ukraine, Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has said.

Seventeen EU member states and Norway this week agreed to jointly procure ammunition to help Ukraine and to replenish their own stockpiles, the European Defence Agency said.

“This plant can count on new orders and funds, we will be launching new production lines at this company and the others to produce ammunition,” Morawiecki told Radio RMF when asked about Breton’s visit to the factory.

“We want to multiply the output severalfold as quickly as possible,” he said.

New Zealand Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta has expressed concern to China over any provision of lethal aid to support Russia in its war against Ukraine during a meeting with her Chinese counterpart.

Her press office detailed Mahuta’s cautionary remarks in Beijing, days after Chinese President Xi Jinping concluded his trip to Moscow, a warm affair in which Xi and Putin praised each other and spoke of a profound friendship.

Mahuta also told Qin’s predecessor Wang Yi, now the Chinese Communist Party’s most senior foreign policy official, that peace and prosperity are the expectations of all parties, according to China’s official news agency Xinhua. New Zealand supports the political settlement of disputes through dialogue, she was quoted saying in the report.

Wang said the pressing task is to achieve a ceasefire and resume peace talks, and that China would continue to play a constructive role to promote a political settlement, the agency added.

Kiev has said its forces were “managing to stabilise” the situation around Bakhmut, a now-destroyed city in eastern Ukraine that has seen the longest battle of the Russian offensive.

The frontline situation is “the toughest in the Bakhmut direction”, the head of Ukraine’s armed forces Valery Zaluzhny said late Friday after a phone call with Britain’s Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Sir Tony Rada kin.

Senior Ukrainian military commander Oleksandr Syrsky said Thursday that a counter-attack could be launched soon against “exhausted” Russian forces near Bakhmut.

The head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said Monday that his forces were in control of around 70 percent of the city.

Russia’s parliament speaker has proposed banning the activities of the International Criminal Court (ICC) after the court issued an arrest warrant for Putin, accusing him of war crimes.

Vyacheslav Volodin, an ally of Putin’s, said that Russian legislation should be amended to prohibit any activity of the ICC in Russia and to punish any who gave “assistance and support” to the ICC.

Volodin said that the United States had legislated to prevent its citizens from ever being tried by the Hague court and that Russia should continue that work.

The ICC issued an arrest warrant earlier this month accusing Putin of the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine. It said there are reasonable grounds to believe that Putin bears individual criminal responsibility.

Russian officials have cautioned that any attempt to arrest Putin, Russia’s paramount leader since the last day of 1999, would amount to a declaration of war against the world’s largest nuclear power.

The United Nations has said it was “deeply concerned” by what it said were summary executions of prisoners of war by both Russian and Ukrainian forces on the battlefield.

The head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, Matilda Bogner, said that her organisation had recently recorded killings by both sides.

“We are deeply concerned about (the) summary execution of up to 25 Russian prisoners of war and persons hors de combat by the Ukrainian armed forces, which we have documented,” Bogner said at a press conference in Kiev.

Bogner also expressed “deep” concern over the alleged executions of 15 Ukrainian prisoners by Russian armed forces after their capture.

President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau celebrated the close, “inseparable” US-Canada relationship and vowed that the two nations remain committed to defending Ukraine as it tries to repel a Russian offensive that has no end in sight.

Biden and Trudeau met just days after Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping held talks for the first time since the start of the war.

The Chinese and Russian leaders agreed to deepen economic bonds between their two countries. But Biden argued that Western resolve remains stronger and warned Russia that the US, Canada and their allies would defend “every inch of NATO territory.”

US President Joe Biden has said he believed China has not sent arms to Russia after Putin’s forces entered Ukraine.

“I don’t take China lightly. I don’t take Russia lightly,” he told a news conference during a visit to Canada.

“I’ve been hearing now for the past three months (that) China is going to provide significant weapons to Russia… They haven’t yet. Doesn’t mean they won’t, but they haven’t yet.”

Democratic and Republican US senators have urged the Biden administration to share information with the International Criminal Court that could assist as it pursues war crimes charges against Putin.

Last week, the court issued an arrest warrant for Putin, accusing him of the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine. The legal move will obligate the court’s 123 member states to arrest Putin and transfer him to The Hague for trial if he sets foot on their territory.

The letter to President Joe Biden from Democrats Dick Durbin, Bob Menendez, Richard Blumenthal and Sheldon Whitehouse and Republicans Lindsey Graham and Thom Tillis, noted that Congress passed legislation to give the administration more flexibility in assisting the ICC.

“Yet, months later, as the ICC is working to build cases against Russian officials, including Putin himself, the United States reportedly has not yet shared key evidence that could aid in these prosecutions,” the letter said.

Source: TRTworld.com

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced plans on Saturday to station tactical nuclear weapons in neighboring Belarus, a warning to the West as it steps up military support for Ukraine.

Putin said he was responding to Britain’s decision this past week to provide Ukraine with armor-piercing rounds containing depleted uranium.

Russia claimed these rounds have nuclear components.

He said Russia would maintain control over the tactical nuclear weapons stationed in Belarus. Construction of storage facilities for them would be completed by July 1, Putin said.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has long asked for the weapons, Putin said, speaking in an interview broadcast Saturday evening on Russian state television.

Putin insisted that Russia would not be violating its international obligations on the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons, saying the United States has long deployed its nuclear weapons on the territory of its NATO allies.

Belarus shares borders with three NATO members: Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.

What are these weapons and what is Russia’s policy on them:

What are tactical nuclear weapons?

Academics and arms control negotiators have spent years arguing about how to define tactical nuclear weapons (TNW).

The clue is in the name: they are nuclear weapons used for specific tactical gains on the battlefield, rather than, say, destroying the biggest cities of the US or Russia.

Few people know exactly how many TNW Russia has because it is an area still shrouded in traditions of Cold War secrecy.

Russia has a huge numerical superiority over the US and the transatlantic NATO military alliance when it comes to TNW: the US believes Russia has around 2,000 such working tactical warheads, 10 times more than Washington.

These warheads can be delivered via a variety of missiles, torpedoes and gravity bombs from naval, air or ground forces. They could even be simply driven into an area and detonated.

The US has around 200 such weapons, half of which are at bases in Europe. These 12-ft B61 nuclear bombs, with different yields of 0.3 to 170 kilotons, are deployed at six air bases across Italy, Germany, Türkiye, Belgium and the Netherlands.

The atomic bomb dropped by the US on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in 1945 was about 15 kilotons.

Who gives the Russian launch order?

The president is the ultimate decision maker when it comes to using Russian nuclear weapons, both strategic and non-strategic, according to Russia’s nuclear doctrine.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Russia had around 22,000 TNWs while the US had around 11,500. Most of these weapons have been dismantled or are waiting to be dismantled.

The ones that remain are stored in at least 30 military bases and silos under the control of the 12th Main Directorate of the defence ministry (12th GUMO) headed by Igor Kolesnikov, who reports directly to the defence minister.

To prepare a TNW strike, it is likely that Putin would consult with senior allies from the Russian Security Council before ordering, via the general staff, that a warhead be joined with a delivery vehicle and prepared for a potential launch order.

Because Putin could not predict the US response, Russia’s entire nuclear posture would change: submarines would go to sea, missile forces would be put on full alert and strategic bombers would be visible at bases, ready for immediate takeoff.

Stationing nuclear weapons

After the Soviet collapsed in 1991, the US went to enormous efforts to return the Soviet nuclear weapons stationed in Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan to Russia — which inherited the nuclear arsenal of the Soviet Union.

Since the weapons were returned in the early 1990s, Russia has not announced any nuclear weapon deployments outside its borders.

Putin said on Saturday the agreement with Belarus would not contravene non-proliferation agreements.

The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, signed by the Soviet Union, says that no nuclear power can transfer nuclear weapons or technology to a non-nuclear power, but it does allow for the weapons to be deployed outside its borders but under its control — as with US nuclear weapons in Europe.

Source: TRTworld.com

The US Department of Defense has said that there are no indications that Russia is preparing to use nuclear weapons after Moscow’s announcement to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.

“We have seen reports of Russia’s announcement and will continue to monitor this situation,” the Department of Defense’s press office said in a written statement.

“We have not seen any reason to adjust our own strategic nuclear posture nor any indications Russia is preparing to use a nuclear weapon.

We remain committed to the collective defense of the NATO alliance.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin has agreed with the conclusions drawn by American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh that US special services were involved in the Nord Stream pipeline explosions.

“The American journalist, who has become rather famous now worldwide, carried out such an investigation and as we know, drew a conclusion that blast on the gas pipelines was organised by the US special services. I fully agree with such conclusions,” Putin said, according to TASS news agency.

“I believe that it will be hard to attain this (the truth about the Nord Stream incident), but someday it will probably come out for sure what was done and how,” Putin added.

Ukraine touts defence deals with allies

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has touted his country’s defence deals with Western allies, saying the Russian “enemy became even more isolated, even more hopeless.”

“This week we have a decision on new defence support packages from the United States, Lithuania, Finland, and Germany. The Swedish Parliament has already approved the 11th defence support package for Ukraine,” he said in his fresh video message, adding. “There is a security package and strong agreements with Japan.”

He said Ukraine received $1.6 billion in macro-financial assistance from the European Union and the funds are already in the National Bank’s accounts.

The Croatian government has adopted a programme for treating and rehabilitating our wounded warriors and Greece joined the group of partners working on establishing the Special Tribunal, he said.

“Step by step, we are doing everything possible and everywhere so that Russian revanchism loses in every element of its aggression against Ukraine and the freedom of nations in general.” he said.

“Russia must lose on the battlefield, in the economy, in international relations, and in its attempts to replace the historical truth with some imperial myths… It is the full-scale defeat of Russia that will be a reliable guarantee against new aggressions and crises.”

Source: TRTworld.com

Hungary will not agree to Ukraine joining NATO and the EU as long as Kiev continues to discriminate against ethnic Hungarians living in Transcarpathia, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has stated.

Szijjarto added that he raised the issue at a meeting with the UN assistant secretary general for human rights, Ilze Brands Kehris.

Up to 99 Hungarian primary and secondary schools are in danger of being closed in Ukraine due to the nation’s education law, Szijjarto said. “I made it clear to Ilze Brands Kehris… that Hungary will not be able to support Ukraine’s transatlantic and European integration [bids] under any circumstances as long as Hungarian schools in the Transcarpathia region are in danger,” the minister posted on Facebook on Friday.

Kiev has been cracking down on minority language rights for years. Laws enforcing the use of Ukrainian in education and television were adopted in 2017 under then-President Pyotr Poroshenko. In 2018, another law banned the teaching of Russian, as well as Romanian, Polish, and Hungarian beyond the primary school level.

In 2019, the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission criticized Ukraine’s State Language Law, saying it “fails to strike balance between strengthening Ukrainian and safeguarding minorities’ linguistic rights.”

Budapest has been among the most vocal critics of Kiev’s language policies in the West. According to Szijjarto, Ukraine has not done anything substantial to address Hungary’s concerns.

“For the past eight years, we have continuously received promises from the Ukrainian authorities that they will solve this problem, but they have not actually done anything,” he said.

Around 156,000 ethnic Hungarians live in Ukraine, most of them in the western region of Transcarpathia. Ukraine is also home to around 150,000 ethnic Romanians and more than 250,000 Moldovans. Bucharest previously joined Budapest to demand that Kiev’s language laws be revised.

In February, Szijjarto announced that the Council of Europe will review the treatment of minorities and issue a report on alleged discrimination against ethnic Hungarians and Romanians living in Ukraine. He pointed to yet another law adopted in December 2022, which mandated the use of Ukrainian in most aspects of daily and public life, including schools.

Source: Russia Today

Leading French TV and filmmaking figures – including actress Juliette Binoche and director Michel Hazanavicius – have addressed President Emmanuel Macron in an open letter, decrying the controversial pension reform plans that have sparked angry protests across the country.

The petition was published by the newspaper Liberation on Wednesday.

The artists have joined the mass opposition to the pension bill that would see the retirement age in France increase from 62 to 64. The petition calls the change “unfair, ineffective, affecting the most precarious and women the hardest, rejected by the vast majority of the population, and even a minority in the National Assembly.” The French celebrities are demanding an “immediate withdrawal” of the measure.

Special attention was drawn to the “impact of the reform on artists and filmmakers.” In particular, the text cites surveys that show that “roles are offered more rarely to women past the age of 50” and thus the new retirement age would put actresses in a more vulnerable position.

The letter was originally signed by 300 French actors, singers and filmmakers, but had gathered over 1,800 signatures on the Change.org website as of Saturday.

Binoche is one of the biggest names among those who signed the petition. Her acting career spans over 40 years and she has appeared in more than 60 feature films. Apart from multiple French film awards, Binoche also won a prestigious Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 1997 for her role in The English Patient. Similarly, another signatory to the letter, Michel Hazanavicius won the Academy Award for Best Director in 2011 for his film The Artist.

Demonstrations against the French pension reform bill have been taking place since January, when the bill was still a work-in-progress. Over one million protesters took to the streets on Thursday, according to the French Interior Ministry, following last week’s decision by the Macron government to use executive privilege to pass the pension reform without a parliamentary vote.

The situation has escalated to clashes between the protesters and police, drawing concerns from the Council of Europe’s human rights commissioner.

Source: Russia Today