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SEOUL: South Korea, the US and Japan called for stronger international support of efforts to ban North Korea from sending workers abroad and curb the North’s cybercrimes as a way to block the country’s means to fund its nuclear program.
The top South Korean, US and Japanese nuclear envoys met in Seoul on Friday in their first gathering in four months to discuss how to cope with North Korea’s growing nuclear arsenal. The North’s recent weapons tests show it is intent on acquiring more advanced missiles designed to attack the US and its allies, rather than returning to talks.
Despite 11 rounds of UN sanctions and pandemic-related hardships that have worsened its economic and food problems, North Korea still devotes much of its scarce resources to its nuclear and missile programs. Contributing to financing its weapons program is also likely the North’s crypto hacking and other illicit cyber activities and the wages sent by North Korean workers remaining in China, Russia and elsewhere despite an earlier UN order to repatriate them by the end of 2019, experts say.
In a joint statement, the South Korean, US and Japanese envoys urged the international community to thoroughly abide by UN resolutions on the banning of North Korean workers overseas, according to Seoul’s Foreign Ministry.
The ministry said a large number of North Korean workers remains engaged in economic activities around the world and transmits money that is used in the North’s weapons programs. It said the three envoys tried to call attention to the North Korean workers because the North may further reopen its international borders as the global COVID-19 situation improves.
“We need to make sure that its provocations never go unpunished. We will effectively counter North Korea’s future provocations and cut their revenue streams that fund these illegal activities,” Kim Gunn, the South Korean envoy, said in televised comments at the start of the meeting.
Sung Kim, the US envoy, said that with its nuclear and missile programs and “malicious cyber program that targets countries and individuals around the globe,” North Korea threatens the security and prosperity of the entire international community.
South Korea’s spy agency said in December that North Korean hackers had stolen an estimated $1.2 billion (1.5 trillion won) in cryptocurrency and other virtual assets in the past five years, more than half of it last year alone. The National Intelligence Service said North Korea’s capacity to steal digital assets was considered among the best in the world because it has focused on cybercrimes since UN economic sanctions were toughened in 2017 in response to its nuclear and missile tests.
Friday’s trilateral meeting will likely infuriate North Korea, which has previously warned that the three countries’ moves to boost their security cooperation prompted urgent calls to reinforce its own military capability.
North Korea has long argued the UN sanctions and US-led military exercises in the region are proof of Washington’s hostility against Pyongyang. The North has also said it was compelled to develop nuclear weapons to cope with US military threats, though US and South Korean officials have steadfastly said they have no intention of invading the North.
Earlier this week, the United States conducted anti-submarine naval drills with South Korean and Japanese forces in their first such training in six months. The US also flew nuclear-capable bombers for separate, bilateral aerial training with South Korean warplanes.
North Korea hasn’t performed weapons tests in reaction to those US-involved drills. But last month, it carried out a barrage of missile tests to protest the earlier South Korean-US military training that it sees as an invasion rehearsal.
There are also concerns that North Korea could carry out its first nuclear test in more than five years, since it unveiled a new type of nuclear warhead last week. Foreign experts debate whether North Korea has developed warheads small and light enough to fit on missiles.
KHERSON: Built in the early 20th century, Kherson Regional Art Museum stands proudly in the heart of the southern Ukrainian city. With its grand and imposing architecture, the historic building has variously served as the city council chambers, its main court, and even a public bank.
In 1977, the building became an art gallery, housing about 15,000 pieces — one of the biggest art collections in the country. Today, however, its walls are dotted with pinned paper notes identifying the many artworks looted during the Russian occupation of the city.
For eight months last year, Russian forces controlled Kherson. In November, following a massive Ukrainian counteroffensive, they were forced to abandon the territory but not without first removing thousands of exhibits from the museum’s collection.
According to a Human Rights Watch report of December 2022, “during this (occupation) period, and particularly over the final three weeks, Russian soldiers and other state agents working with them pillaged the Kherson Regional Art Museum, the Kherson Regional Museum, St. Catherine’s Cathedral, and the Kherson Region National Archives.”
Igor Rusol, deputy chief of the Kherson Regional Art Museum, estimates that about 80 percent of the valuable contents of the collection were stolen by the Russian occupiers and shipped by the truckload across the border into Russia.
“The Russian soldiers secured help from some civilians here to help them carry the art pieces,” he told Arab News. “But the civilians didn’t look right. They seemed drugged up and were homeless. I don’t think they were aware of the gravity of what they were doing.”
Rusol has been with the art museum for eight years. “This place is my soul,” he said. “I stayed during the occupation but I saw the looting coming. I prepared myself mentally for it but I remain disgusted with the situation.”
The material cost of the stolen artifacts is placed at hundreds of millions of dollars but Rusol said it is the cultural significance of the loss that matters most to him.
“Not only did they loot pieces, they stole the hard drives and books that served as our archives,” he said. “Thankfully we had backups and we are now working to finalize the list with a special commission office.”
According to the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture, at least 580 cultural sites have been damaged or destroyed across the country since Russia launched what it called a “special military operation” on Feb. 24, 2022, designed to “denazify” the Ukrainian government.
Among these sites are 22 archaeological treasures, 28 military graveyards, 42 historical districts, 268 architectural sites and 19 monumental art pieces. About 1,322 objects of cultural value have been damaged or destroyed.
As of March 22 this year, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization had verified damage to 248 Ukrainian sites since the war began, including 107 religious sites, 21 museums, 89 buildings of historical or artistic interest, 19 monuments and 12 libraries.
The collections at the Kherson Regional Art Museum became vulnerable during the occupation when the number of staff on shift at the institution was reduced, Rusol said. It is thought that two employees with pro-Russian sympathies collaborated with the occupiers and advised them about what to take. One of the suspected collaborators subsequently moved to the Russian Federation and has not returned.
Rusol believes some items were looted purely for financial gain, while others were likely destined for Russian museums.
The deliberate destruction of cultural heritage and the looting and smuggling of artifacts are considered war crimes under the 1954 Hague Convention, to which both Russia and Ukraine are signatories.
Since Feb. 24, 2022, UNESCO has verified damage to 248 Ukrainian cultural heritage sites, including 107 religious sites, 21 museums, 89 buildings of historical interest, 19 monuments, and 12 libraries.
Russian officials might argue that the decision to remove artworks and artifacts was intended to protect them from harm. Indeed, when Russian forces declared martial law in annexed territories of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk in September, authorities were granted permission to “evacuate” items of economic, social and cultural significance. In October, Russian state news agency Ria Novosti reported that two statues of historical Russian naval commanders were removed from Kherson “because of the threat of damage during shelling or terrorist attacks by the Ukronazis.”
As he gave Arab News a tour of the art museum, Rusol pointed out two portraits of Vladimir Lenin, the Russian revolutionary leader and founder of the Soviet Union.
“Isn’t it ironic that they left his portraits here?” he said.
The art museum had been undergoing restoration work before the invasion but, not surprisingly, the process has been put on hold. Rusol believes it will be a long time before it can resume.
“Firstly, Ukraine has to win the war,” he said. “I don’t think the restoration will take place during my lifetime. There are people who have lost their homes, whole towns raised to the ground.”
He suspects the war is not likely to end anytime soon.
“Russians are unpredictable and stubborn,” Rusol said. “They still insist there is no war. How do you reason with such people?”
It is not only precious artworks that have been looted from Kherson. At St. Catherine’s Cathedral, the grave of famed 18th century Russian statesman and military commander Grigory Potemkin was plundered and his remains moved across the Dnipro River to Russian-held territory, along with a statue of him.
To reach his resting place and remove his remains, the occupiers had to open a trap door in the middle of the church floor and go down a small flight of stairs. Little attempt appeared to have been made to conceal the theft.
“This church wasn’t properly looked after during the Soviet era,” Father Ilya, the cathedral’s priest, told Arab News. “It was us who restored it after we received our independence. We have guarded Potemkin’s remains and now they’ve desecrated him.”
Standing beside Potemkin’s looted grave, Father Ilya added: “Whether one is a prince or an ordinary man, the disturbance of a corpse should not be done. We have looked after his remains, we have taken better care of history than the Russians have.”
Potemkin, an adviser to Empress Catherine the Great, played a critical role in the annexation of Crimea from the Ottomans in 1783. As a result, he is a celebrated figure among Russian nationalists. President Vladimir Putin even cited Potemkin’s legacy as part of his justification for Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
During a speech in September last year marking the annexation of several other eastern Ukrainian territories, Putin again mentioned Potemkin as one of the founders of many towns in the region, and he referred to the area as Novorossiya, or “New Russia.”
In 2021, prior to the invasion, Putin wrote an essay titled “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians” in which he expressed his belief that Russians and Ukrainians are one people artificially divided by borders and outsiders.
Russia is accused of seeking, on the basis of this disputed notion, to dismantle Ukrainian national identity, commandeer its cultural artifacts, rewrite its history, erase local traditions, and subsume its territory into the Russian Federation.
Anastasia Bondar, Ukraine’s deputy minister of culture and information, described the destruction and looting of her country’s cultural heritage as a war crime.
“We will take this to court,” she told Arab News.
It will be a difficult task to identify and trace all of the artworks and artifacts that have gone missing since the invasion, she conceded, but added: “We will not give up on our history and we will take what is rightfully ours back.
“But it is more than the looted pieces. The invaders are purposely destroying our infrastructure and cultural sites; they are even burning our books.”
Asked whether more might have been done to protect heritage sites and collections before the Russian troops moved in, Bondar said there was simply no time to safely remove all of the items.
“We were not able to evacuate our museums properly because such things take time,” she said. “There are special ways to remove an artifact properly without causing any damage to the piece.”
Ukraine is now lobbying for a special tribunal to be established to hold Russia accountable for its aggression and its consequences, including the alleged destruction of cultural heritage.
The deliberate destruction of cultural heritage and the looting and smuggling of cultural artifacts are considered war crimes under the 1954 Hague Convention, to which both Russia and Ukraine are signatories.
Back at the Kherson Regional Art Museum, where empty picture frames hang poignantly on largely bare walls, Rusol remains defiant, believing Russia will ultimately fail to quash Ukraine’s sense of national identity.
“They came here to destroy us and our culture,” he said. “But they won’t be able to.”
ASSAMAKA: A long line of people appears in silhouette, walking along the flat desert in northern Niger.
The strong walkers are at the front. The weakest at the rear.
Every week hundreds more migrants thrown out of Algeria end up here in Assamaka, the first village on the Niger border.
More than 4,500 of them so far have washed up in this tiny windswept corner of the Sahara — Malians, Guineans and Ivorians mainly, but also Syrians and even Bangladeshis.
They have marched across 15 km of wasteland only to enter a new purgatory.
A transit center run by the UN’s International Organization for Migration cannot cope with the numbers and only handles about a third of arrivals.
“When we got here we were told we were not recognized as migrants by the IOM and so we had to pay for our own transport to return home,” said Abdoul Karim Bambara from the Ivory Coast.
Assamaka’s water tanks are nearly dry, food rations insufficient and shelter from the cruel sun is in short supply.
In temperatures that can nudge 48 degrees Celsius (118 degrees Fahrenheit), thousands seek shade beneath walls or under tarpaulins.
The migrants say that they were stripped of their possessions in Algeria, the stepping-stone to a hoped-for new life in Europe.
They cannot afford to pay for travel home, or even to phone relatives.
They are stranded in what is an open prison in the desert, sometimes for months.
Their numbers include talented and educated people — doctors, students and traders.
But around the barbed-wire walls of the IOM compound, individual traits are forgotten as an angry crowd of needy people forms, pushing and shoving in visceral despair.
“We have become like cattle,” said Herman, also from Ivory Coast.
Many of the migrants are physically ill, ravaged by scabies or suffering infected wounds. All are hungry.
“You saw that?” one man said, showing a lump of fly-infested sticky rice. “Would you eat that? We are falling sick from that.”
Off to the side, two groups of hungry men are throwing stones at each other amid a cloud of dust.
Fights are common. Days earlier, the death of a Cameroonian ignited a riot that was put down with tear gas. The IOM centre was ransacked by the protesters.
“We are all traumatised. People can no longer control themselves, they are losing their minds, there’s nothing here. People are dying,” raged Aboubacar Cherif Cisse from Sierra Leone.
“If there was enough to eat, people wouldn’t fight, but there is no food — what can they do? If they have nothing, they will fight each other just to stay alive,” said Mohamed Mambu, who represents Sierra Leoneans at another transit centre at Arlit, 200 km away.
The 1,500 residents of Assamaka are overwhelmed by the migrant situation.
“They are everywhere in the village, near the health centre, by the walls,” said Francois Ibrahim who works with an NGO called Alarme Phone Sahara, which helps migrants stranded in the desert.
Ibrahim said the migrants steal animals from residents and kill them for food.
The number of migrants pushed into Niger has been increasing since the start of the year, creating an “unprecedented situation,” according to the French charity Doctors without Borders known as MSF.
Niger’s regional capital Agadez, 350 km from Assamaka, has a third transit centre, but all three are overwhelmed.
The roads heading south are threatened by armed jihadist groups, which means migrants have to be flown out on charter flights for their safety.
“The flights are often cancelled … Yet every week people are expelled” from Algeria, said Ousmane Atair, a manager at the Arlit center.
Migrants are taken by road from Assamaka to Arlit and then on to Agadez in convoys organized by IOM sub-contractors.
The region seems to be paying the price for its relative stability.
“The road from Assamaka to Arlit is the best protected and that’s why the migration flow heads this way,” said Arlit mayor Abdourahamane Maouli.
With demand for international aid soaring globally, the EU, eager to keep migrants away, has become the main financial support for the IOM in the region.
“The IOM plays a key role in the policy of EU states to externalize their borders to African territory,” said Alarme Phone Sahara.
Tari Dogo, secretary of the regional council, said Agadez became the “last gateway” to Europe after the Libyan crisis erupted in 2011, but the EU had failed to act decisively to tackle the migrant flow.
“The European Union bears its share of responsibility for this situation,” he said.
PARIS: French policemen have said they were “mentally exhausted” when they were recorded threatening arrested protesters, in a case that has triggered an investigation, an internal report showed Friday.
Members of a Paris motorbike police unit are being investigated over abusive comments recorded late on March 20 as they detained youth during protests against a contentious pension reform.
In a report to their supervisors, seen by AFP Friday, members of the Motorized Brigades for the Repression of Violent Action (BRAV-M) said fatigue was to blame.
One of them, Yann C., said that he and his team had been on patrol since 10 am when the recording was made after 11 pm.
Another, Benoit A., described “shifts of 14 hours, even 16 hours” during the demonstrations against President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform, which includes increasing the retirement age from 62 to 64.
“Eating and drinking were complicated,” he wrote, claiming some officers took “medication” because they did not have time to go to the bathroom.
“We were physically and mentally exhausted,” he said.
In the recording, shared by French media on March 24, members of the police unit can be heard picking on a 23-year-old Chadian student, who has accused them of slapping him.
The policemen make sexually explicit, sexist and racist comments, while one member of the force tells a protester that they better watch out or next time they will have to take “a thing called an ambulance to go to hospital.”
In the internal report, Victor L. claimed to have focused on the Chadian student not due to his skin color, but because of “his arrogance and provocations.”
Benoit A. says him mocking the foreigner for having “cried like a girl” was just a “clumsy” comment.
Pierre L. denied accusations he slapped him, claiming he simply “pushed him back via the face.”
But the audio features what sounds like a slap and him saying: “Want another one to set your jaw straight?“
Yanis A. claimed that, when he asked the Chadian if he arrived in France “hanging off a plane wing,” he was just trying to “let off steam.”
Theo R., who threatened him with an order to leave French territory, said he was merely trying to “inform him of judicial risks.”
Lawyer Arie Alimi, who is representing the Chadian student and another female protester, said he was not convinced by the policemen’s arguments.
“Fatigue cannot exonerate someone of criminal liability,” he said.
But, he added, “it could invoke the criminal responsibility of the police chief himself in view of the intensity of the operations he ordered.”
Paris police chief Laurent Nunez said he was “extremely shocked by the comments.”
The policemen caught on tape have been taken off duty, but they have not been suspended, Paris police have said.
The inquiries are ongoing.
At least two other BRAV-M policemen are being investigated for alleged brutality, a source close to the case has said, asking not to be named.
Rights groups have accused French police of disproportionate use of force in the pension demonstrations since January, which have turned more violent since the government last month forced the retirement bill through parliament without a vote.
But the interior ministry insists it has been responding to “far-left” radicals intent on damaging public property.
Activists and left-wing lawmakers have called for the BRAV-M to be dissolved, but Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin this week rejected that request.
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QUETTA: Pakistani security forces have arrested the founder and leader of an umbrella group for insurgents in the country’s restive southwest, the military said on Friday.
Gulzar Imam, also known as Shambay, is one of the main leaders of the Baloch separatist insurgency and was arrested as a “high-value target” in an intelligence operation, the military’s media wing said in a statement.
“He has been a hardcore militant as well as founder and leader of the banned outfit Baloch National Army…BNA has been responsible for dozens of violent terrorist attacks in Pakistan including attacks on law enforcement agency installations,” the military said, adding that his visits to India and Afghanistan are on record, and his suspected links with hostile intelligence agencies were being investigated.
“The arrest of Gulzar Imam Shambay is a serious blow to the BNA as well as other militant groups, which have been attempting to destabilize the hard-earned peace in Balochistan.”
An umbrella group for Baloch separatists, the BNA emerged last year after the merger of Imam’s faction of the Baloch Republican Army and United Baloch Army, which are part of the insurgent movement in Balochistan.
Bordering Afghanistan and Iran, the province is Pakistan’s largest in terms of land area and most underdeveloped in terms of almost all social indicators.
For the past two decades, it has been marred by an insurgency fueled by anger that its abundant reserves of natural resources are not relieving citizens from crushing poverty.
Insurgents are also opposed to, and attack, projects linked to China’s Belt and Road infrastructure initiative in the resource-rich province. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor infrastructure project has inflamed grievances, with claims the vast influx of investment does not benefit locals.
Balochistan Home Minister Meer Zia Langove told Arab News the arrest of the BNA chief was a major blow not only to the BNA but also to other militant groups in the region, as “the government and security forces will continue action until we sweep out the last terrorist from this soil.”
Although Imam is a senior insurgent commander, experts are not convinced that his arrest will have a significant impact.
“It was a success for the government and security forces because they could get information about the BNA’s activities, other leaders and group members and also bust out their domestic and international linkages,” Shahzada Zulfiqar, a journalist and an expert in the Balochistan insurgency, told Arab News.
“But Imam was not alone. There were still many active commanders fighting on the ground.”
The strength of the Baloch separatist movement is not in its individual leaders but the Baloch youth who are driving it, according to Abdul Basit, a research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore.
“The insurgency in Balochistan is not dependent on one single commander, because the center of gravity of Baloch insurgency lies on the ethnic grievances,” he told Arab News, adding that the arrest was nevertheless a victory for the Pakistani government as Imam has been considered one of the top three separatist commanders who have been leading the fight against the state.
MANILA: Jocelyn Gan got charmed by the biggest Korean pop band BTS during the coronavirus pandemic when she watched a 2020 reality series showing them take a break from their busy lives.
She immediately fell for the band and joined their ARMY — the multinational group of millions of fans and various BTS fan clubs, whose passion and devotion to the boyband has become a phenomenon, even beyond the band itself.
While BTS and K-pop in general are perceived as a thing for young people, Gan, 61, is a testament to the diversity of its fandom.
“Their songs touch the heart, no matter where in the world and how young or old you are,” she told Arab News.
Gan is part of Titas of BTS, a Philippine fan club created in 2020 for slightly older members of the ARMY. Literally meaning aunties, the titas are now a legion of more than 14,000 Filipino women in their late 30s and above, who stan over the group members’ music, fashion, and personal lives.
“We are mature women who know precisely what we want, and fangirling has become a primary want and need,” Gan said.
“It is my dream that when they do come to our country again, I will certainly be at their concert … Stanning BTS helps us have that youth boost again and gives us a happy high.”
Based in Manila, the Titas of BTS community has proved that no one is ever too old for K-pop, especially in the Philippines which has been topping global rankings of K-pop listeners on streaming services and in 2022 had the second-biggest audience for BTS after the US, according to Spotify.
And while ARMY has been making international headlines with its size and devotion to the band, less has been said about its diversity, which may be one of this fandom’s special qualities, as they surpass borders and language barriers.
Aileen Zapata, a 55-year-old member of Titas of BTS, said ARMY was, “the only fandom who accepts members who are over the age of fangirling.”
Kim Tan, 35, also a BTS tita, told Arab News that it was not only a fan club but also a place where real bonds were created.
She said: “ARMY or the fandom in general is special because of the amazing connection that we have with BTS and each other. It’s so deep that we know these are friendships that will last us a lifetime.
“Titas of BTS was the first BTS-focused Facebook group I ever joined. I liked it a lot because discussions weren’t surface level. ARMYs there discussed song meanings, album theories, and even how the members deal with really personal stuff.”
Christina Matias, 41, also a Titas of BTS member, said: “They have this kind of magic that once you have watched their performances and their shows, you see yourself being hooked and loving them that much.
“They are also an inspiration to the youth about reaching one’s dream by being persistent to what they wanted to be.”
How BTS’ songs related to real life was what drew 42-year-old Hannah Torregoza to become a fan.
“I discovered this during the pandemic, their songs touch on realities on the ground. They don’t hold back on social issues, ills, mental health, depression, the importance of self-worth, loyalty, unity, and about the intricacies of one’s self,” she told Arab News.
“While they do have love songs, most of their songs have deeper meaning. I don’t see or hear that much on Western music anymore.”