https://arab.news/mxbfy
LONDON: Britain announced Thursday new sanctions against Belarus, its latest punishment for the eastern European country’s support of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and suppression of anti-government activists.
London said the new curbs would hit Belarus exports that have been funding the administration of authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko, an ally of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, and “crack down on Russia’s efforts to circumvent sanctions.”
Western countries have imposed several rounds of sanctions on Moscow, and its neighbor to the west Minsk, following the launch of the Russian war in Ukraine in February last year.
The UK is now banning imports of gold, cement, wood and rubber from Belarus, and blocking exports of banknotes and machinery, alongside goods, technologies and materials that could be used to produce chemical and biological weapons.
The measures also give Britain grounds to prevent designated Belarusian media organizations from spreading propaganda and disinformation in the UK, including over the Internet.
Social media companies and Internet service providers will be required to restrict access to the websites of sanctioned Belarusian media organizations, as occurs with sanctioned Russian outlets.
The new legislation also expands sanctions criteria, giving the UK government the basis to target a broader range of Belarusians, such as Lukashenko’s aides, advisers and ministers.
“This new package ratchets up the economic pressure on Lukashenko and his regime which actively facilitates the Russian war effort and ignores Ukraine’s territorial integrity,” Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said in a statement.
“Our support for Ukraine will remain resolute for as long as it takes and the UK will not hesitate to introduce further measures against those who prop up Putin’s war.”
Belarus has been ruled by Lukashenko since 1994.
The UK was among a number of Western countries that imposed sanctions on Lukashenko’s government for its suppression of mass anti-government protests in 2020.
Western countries then imposed various new sanctions last year over its role in Russia’s ongoing war on Ukraine.
Lukashenko has allowed Russia to use Belarusian territory and airspace to conduct missile and drone strikes against Ukraine, as well as providing training and logistical support to Moscow’s forces.
LONDON: Aftab Khan, a British man from Wolverhampton, fears members of his family are among the hundreds of people missing after a fishing boat overloaded with migrants capsized and sank off the coast of Greece in the early hours of Wednesday.
The search for survivors continued on Thursday in the Ionian Sea, where the boat floundered about 50 miles from the southern coastal town of Pylos. The local coast guard service said 104 people have been rescued and 78 bodies recovered so far.
According to Greek authorities, most of the migrants were originally from Egypt, Syria and Pakistan. The boat had set sail from Libya and was heading for Italy.
Some of those on board made panicked calls to the charity Alarm Phone, which provides a hotline for migrants in distress on vessels in the Mediterranean Sea. It said the boat might have been carrying up to 750 people, Sky News reported.
Khan, who traveled to Greece shortly after news of the tragedy broke, told Sky News that one of his cousins had been found alive but he has been unable to locate two others.
“We don’t know where the rest of them are at the moment,” he said from the port city of Kalamata, where survivors are being looked after. “We’re just trying to find out.”
The boat capsized and sank at about 2 a.m. on Wednesday after its engine reportedly failed and it began veering from side to side. Images released by the Greek coast guard show dozens of people on the top and lower decks staring up, some with arms outstretched. According to witnesses, there were many women and children in the hold below.
Alarm Phone said it had spoken to someone on board who said: “The captain left on a small boat. Please, any solution.”
The charity accused the Greek and other European authorities of failing to launch a rescue operation before the boat capsized, despite being “well aware of this overcrowded and unseaworthy vessel,” Sky News reported.
The Greek coast guard denied this and said people on the boat “refused our assistance because they wanted to go to Italy.”
Many of the survivors were being treated for hypothermia and dehydration. They are temporarily housed in a warehouse, where Greek authorities are working to confirm their identities and interview them, as they look for any people smugglers who might be among them.
The UN’s International Organization for Migration said reports suggest there were up to 400 people on the boat. The deputy mayor of Kalamata told Sky News the number was probably closer to 550.
GENEVA: A United Nations expert voiced alarm Thursday over alleged widespread torture by Russian military forces in Ukraine, saying it pointed to “state-endorsed” abuse.
The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Alice Jill Edwards, said the alleged victims included both Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war, adding that she had written to Moscow about this.
She cited reports and testimonies that torture was being consistently used to extract intelligence, to force confessions or used to punish former membership or support of Ukrainian armed forces.
“The alleged practices include electric shocks, beatings, hooding, mock executions and other threats of death,” she said in a statement.
“If established, they… may also amount to a pattern of state-endorsed torture.”
Those allegedly tortured were often held in “grossly inadequate conditions” in facilities run by Russian forces inside Ukraine after Moscow invaded in February last year, the statement said.
It detailed how the alleged torture had left people suffering from things like hallucinations, damage to internal organs, fractures and cracks in bones and strokes.
Edwards said she and other UN rights experts had voiced their concerns in a letter to Moscow.
In the letter, she said the consistency and methods of the alleged torture suggests “a level of coordination, planning and organization, as well as the direct authorization, deliberate policy or official tolerance from superior authorities.”
Edwards and other special rapporteurs are independent rights experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, but who do not speak on behalf of the UN.
“Torture is a war crime, and the systematic or widespread practice of torture constitutes a crime against humanity,” Edwards warned.
“Obeying a superior order or policy direction cannot be invoked as justification for torture, and any individual involved should be promptly investigated and prosecuted by independent authorities.”
Edwards said she planned to conduct a fact-finding mission to Ukraine later this year.
“The longer the war goes on, the more reports are emerging of torture and other inhuman treatment,” Edwards said.
“I strongly urge relevant authorities to ensure that civilians and prisoners of war are protected and treated humanely at all times.”
BERLIN: An American man has been arrested after allegedly assaulting two US tourists near Neuschwanstein castle in southern Germany and then pushing them down a steep slope, an attack that left one of the women dead, authorities said Thursday.
The incident near the popular tourist attraction happened on Wednesday afternoon. It took place near the Marienbruecke, a bridge over a gorge close to the castle that offers a famous view of Neuschwanstein.
The 30-year-old man met the two female tourists, ages 21 and 22, on a hiking path and lured them onto a trail that leads to a viewpoint, police said in a statement.
The man then “physically attacked” the younger woman, police said. When her companion tried to intervene, he choked her and pushed her down a steep slope.
The assailant then appears to have attempted to sexually assault the 21-year-old before pushing her down the slope as well. She fell nearly 50 meters (165 feet), ending up close to her friend.
The mountain rescue service rescued both women. The 22-year-old was “responsive” and taken to a hospital, police said; the 21-year-old was flown by helicopter to a hospital with serious injuries and died there overnight.
The suspect left the scene but was arrested nearby shortly afterward. A witness video posted online showed a man in a T-shirt, jeans and a baseball cap being led away in handcuffs by police.
Police said the man was American and described him as also a tourist; prosecutors said the women were fellow US citizens. The 22-year-old remained hospitalized Thursday, according to prosecutors.
Authorities didn’t identify either the suspect or the victims or give any further details.
Under German law, suspects must be brought before a judge at a closed-doors hearing by the end of the calendar day after their arrest if investigators intend to keep them in custody.
Police said a judge in nearby Kempten on Thursday ordered the suspect held pending a potential indictment — a process that can take months — and he was taken to jail. He is under investigation on suspicion of murder, attempted murder and a sexual offense.
Police said they and prosecutors were focusing on trying to reconstruct exactly what happened and called for any witnesses to come forward.
Neuschwanstein, in southern Bavaria and close to the Austrian border, is one of Germany’s most popular tourist attractions.
It is the most famous of the castles built by King Ludwig II of Bavaria in the 19th century. Construction started in 1869 but was never completed. Ludwig died in 1886.
NEW DELHI: Indian investors are gearing up to enter Saudi Arabia’s real estate sector, which they say will boom over the next few years and overtake the UAE.
With major policy and fiscal initiatives, as well as ongoing megaprojects in non-oil industries under Vision 2030, the Kingdom is becoming an increasingly attractive destination for investors, also in real estate.
“There are big-time opportunities in Saudi Arabia in the real estate sector,” Confederation of Indian Industry senior director, Manish Mohan, told Arab News.
Investment in the sector is likely to yield big returns and Indian investors are expecting returns similar to or even higher than those that investment in Dubai property brought decades ago.
And Mohan expected it to happen in the very near future.
“Saudi Arabia would be a different story in the next five years. Property prices would be skyrocketing, that’s why investment in property makes sense,” he said.
“Indians are not only seeing good returns but also a good opportunity, it’s a profitable business for them.”
One of the Indian pioneers eyeing Saudi property is Strata, a fractional investment fund in premium real estate assets, which plans to invest $500 million over the next five years.
“Everyone has only one thing to say — if you want to put money, you need to put money in Saudi Arabia,” the company’s chief executive officer, Sudarshan Lodha, told Arab News after a recent visit to Saudi Arabia.
“We took a trip and understood that there are opportunities to have an exponential return,” he said.
“Maybe the initial years might be a smaller deployment of about $20 million to $50 million … a five-year plan would be close to half-a-billion dollars.”
Lodha was planning to focus on offices and warehousing in the beginning and returns of between 12 percent and 18 percent at least.
“Anything lower than that is not attractive to us, so if any of the markets today are going to offer us less than that percentage then we will not be there,” he added.
Lodha noted that Saudi Arabia could emerge as a market bigger than the UAE where, he pointed out, the property market, especially in Dubai, had already stabilized.
“It’s been 20 to 30 years of constant development et cetera, it’s predictable growth in my view as of today,” he said. “But for Saudi, with the kind of vision they are sitting on today, there is a bigger scope to overachieve what Dubai has built in the last three decades.”