Clashes between police and gang in Venezuelan capital leave 26 dead
Clashes between police and gang in Venezuelan capital leave 26 dead/node/1892101/world
Clashes between police and gang in Venezuelan capital leave 26 dead
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Venezuelan police engage members of a criminal gang at the Cota 905 neighborhood in Caracas on July 9, 2021. (AFP)
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Police move against members of a criminal gang around La Cota 905 neighborhood in Caracas, Venezuela on July 8, 2021. (AFP)
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A police armored vehicle drives along one of the main streets of the Cota 905 neighborhood in Caracas on July 9 to help battle members of a criminal gang. (AFP)
Clashes between police and gang in Venezuelan capital leave 26 dead
Vice President Delcy Rodriguez linked the gang that controls Cota 905 to some opposition politicians, without providing evidence
Updated 11 July 2021
Reuters
CARACAS: Clashes between police and a gang in northwestern Caracas this week have left at least 26 dead, including four officers, and 38 people injured, Venezuelan Interior Minister Carmen Melendez said on Saturday.
The casualty count comes after several days of heavy gunfire left some capital residents fleeing their homes and snarled traffic in several neighborhoods, as authorities in the crime-stricken city push back on what analysts describe as a gang’s effort to expand its territory beyond the Cota 905 barrio.
Melendez said 10 officers were injured in the clashes and that 22 “criminals” died. She said some 28 “civilians” — a reference to residents not suspected to be gang members — were injured and that some civilians died, though she did not specify how many and did not provide further details.
Human rights activists said this week that four people were killed by stray bullets during the clashes. Activists and the political opposition have for years accused President Nicolas Maduro’s government of disregarding and covering up civilian casualties in anti-crime raids.
They have also criticized pacts the socialist government signed with some gangs to create no-go areas for police in certain neighborhoods in a bid to lower violence, arguing the so-called “peace zones” allowed gangs to consolidate power and resources.
“While civilians and police were murdered, western Caracas lived in fear for two days, and Venezuelans are fleeing the conflict, the dictatorship put on a show,” opposition leader Juan Guaido said.
Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, speaking alongside Melendez on state television, alleged the gang that controls Cota 905 was linked to some opposition politicians, without providing evidence. She added that three alleged members of “Colombian paramilitary” groups were detained in connection to the raids.
Turkiye’s foreign minister to visit Kyiv after talks in Moscow on peace efforts
Updated 3 sec ago
In Kyiv, Fidan is expected to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky Fidan will repeat an offer to host further peace talks between Russia and Ukraine
ANKARA: Türkiye’s foreign minister will travel to Kyiv on Thursday for a two-day visit after discussing peace efforts to end Russia’s war in Ukraine in Moscow earlier this week, a Turkish Foreign Ministry source said on Wednesday.
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan held talks in Moscow on Monday and Tuesday, meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials, including Moscow’s top negotiator at talks in Istanbul earlier this month aimed at ending the three-year war.
In Kyiv, Fidan is expected to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, his Ukrainian counterpart Andrii Sybiha, and Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, who is also Kyiv’s top negotiator with Russia, the source said.
During the talks, Fidan will repeat an offer to host further peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, the source added.
He will “point to the increasingly heavier negative effects of the Russia-Ukraine war, emphasising the need for the war to end through diplomacy, and for a fair and lasting peace to be achieved,” the source said.
Fidan will also discuss bilateral ties, in relation to trade, energy, defense and security, while conveying Turkiye’s readiness to take part in Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction.
Russia is under increasing pressure to agree a ceasefire, and Ankara has repeatedly said the sides need to continue talks after the first direct contact between the sides since March 2022 — also in Istanbul — took place earlier this month.
Delegates from Moscow and Kyiv did not agree on a ceasefire in Istanbul this month, but agreed to trade 1,000 prisoners of war and deliver, in writing, their conditions for a possible ceasefire.
Russian sources have said that NATO member Türkiye, which has maintained good ties with both sides since the start of the war, could be a venue for future talks.
The move comes as European officials warn about a continued threat from Russia
The hub will use contributions from Black Sea and EU countries
Updated 4 min 46 sec ago
Reuters
BRUSSELS: The European Union on Wednesday proposed creating a hub to boost security in the Black Sea by gathering information from multiple countries to monitor the strategically important region more closely.
The move comes as European officials warn about a continued threat from Russia and as concerns deepen across the EU about risks to undersea infrastructure.
The hub would be set up in the short-term and “with a sense of priority due to the Russian war of aggression,” an EU document said.
The hub will use contributions from Black Sea and EU countries and “enhance maritime situational awareness and information sharing on the Black Sea, real-time monitoring from space to seabed, and early warning,” the document said.
The proposal from the European Commission and the bloc’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas notes that the hub would include monitoring of submarine cables, offshore installations and gas and wind energy operations.
It would use underwater sensors, remotely piloted vessels and surveillance drones, it added.
Kallas told reporters that the hub could also help monitor the maritime element of a future peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine.
French court sentences former surgeon to 20 years for raping 299 children
Joël Le Scouarnec, 74, abused his victims while they were unconscious or sedated hospital patients
Updated 3 min 33 sec ago
AP
A 74-year-old pedophile and former surgeon who raped hundreds of victims over a period spanning more than two decades was given a maximum 20-year prison sentence on Friday by a French court.
Joël Le Scouarnec was found guilty of raping and sexually assaulting 299 children.
Judges followed the public prosecutor’s recommendations regarding the length of the sentence and the criminal court of Morbihan ordered that Le Scouarnec should serve at least two-thirds of the sentence before he can be eligible for release.
Le Scouarnec is already serving a 15-year prison sentence, for a conviction in 2020 for the rape and sexual assault of four children, including two nieces.
The new trial in Brittany, western France, began in February and laid bare a pattern of abuse between 1989 and 2014. Most of the victims were unconscious or sedated hospital patients at the time of the assaults. The average age was 11. Among the victims were 158 boys and 141 girls.
Accusations of inaction
During the trial, advocacy groups have accused health authorities of inaction after they were notified as soon as 2005 of Le Scouarnec’s conviction for possessing child pornography pictures.
At the time, no measures were taken to suspend his medical license or limit his contact with children and Le Scouarnec continued his abuse in hospitals until his arrest in 2017.
“Should Joël Le Scouarnec have been the only one in the defendant’s box?” prosecutor Stéphane Kellenberger asked during his closing arguments.
“More could have been done,” Kellenberger said. “Things could have been done differently, even within the notorious layers of French bureaucracy, where responsibilities are so often passed from one authority to another until, eventually, that responsibility is lost, and hits innocent lives.”
A court sketch shows lawyer Maxime Tessier (L) and retired French surgeon Joel Le Scouarnec during his trial at the Criminal Court in Vannes. (AFP)
Le Scouarnec has confessed to all the sexual abuse alleged by the 299 civil parties, as well as to other assaults that are now beyond the statute of limitations. In a shocking admission during the trial, he also acknowledged sexually abusing his granddaughter — a statement made in front of her visibly distraught parents.
Le Scouarnec had been convicted in 2005 for possessing and importing child sexual abuse material and sentenced to four months of suspended prison time. Despite that conviction, he was appointed as a hospital practitioner the following year. Child protection groups that have joined the proceedings as civil parties hope that the case will help strengthen the legal framework to prevent such abuse.
Dismantling taboos
Le Scouarnec’s trial came as activists continue to push to dismantle taboos that have long surrounded sexual abuse in France. The most prominent case was that of Gisèle Pélicot, who was drugged and raped by her now ex-husband and dozens of other men who were convicted and sentenced in December to three to 20 years in prison.
In a separate case focusing on alleged abuse at a Catholic school, an inquiry commission of the National Assembly, France’s lower house of parliament, is investigating allegations of physical and sexual abuse over five decades.
Victims of Le Scouarnec have, however, complained of a perceived lack of attention.
“This trial, which could have served as an open-air laboratory to expose the serious failings of our institutions, seems to leave no mark on the government, the medical community, or society at large,” a group of victims said in a statement.
Horrific notebooks
Not all victims were initially aware they had been abused. Some were contacted by investigators after their names appeared in journals kept by Le Scouarnec, in which he meticulously documented his crimes. Others only realized they had been hospitalized at the time after checking medical records. Two of his victims took their own lives some years before the trial.
Using the cover of medical procedures, the former abdominal and digestive surgeon took advantage of moments when children were alone in their hospital rooms. His method was to disguise sexual abuse as clinical care, targeting young patients who were unlikely to remember the encounters.
The notebooks, which detail the abuse in graphic language, have become central to the prosecution’s case.
Despite the scope of the allegations, Le Scouarnec has remained calm and composed throughout the trial.
“I didn’t see them as people,” he told the court. “They were the destination of my fantasies. As the trial went on, I began to see them as individuals, with emotions, anger, suffering and distress.”
He said his first act of abuse occurred in 1985, when he raped his 5-year-old niece.
Detached and emotionless
While he offered apologies to some victims, his demeanor struck many as detached and emotionless.
“I don’t show emotion, that’s just how I am,” he said. “That doesn’t mean I don’t feel it, but I don’t express it.”
The case first came to light in April 2017, when a 6-year-old neighbor told her mother that the man next door had exposed himself and touched her through the fence separating their properties.
A search of his home uncovered more than 300,000 photos, 650 pedophilic, zoophilic and scatological video files, as well as notebooks where he described himself as a pedophile and detailed his actions.
“Joël Le Scouarnec says he no longer feels any sexual attraction to children, but there’s no way to verify that,” Kellenberger, the prosecutor, told the court. “Experts concluded that we cannot rely on his word alone and that his potential for future danger remains significant.”
A third trial is expected in the coming years, following the emergence of new allegations during this trial, including further abuse involving his granddaughter.
Labor members pressure Australian govt to impose Israel sanctions
Campaigner: ‘There is a deep frustration that Australia has failed to move beyond words’
PM Albanese: Gaza blockade ‘an outrage’ and ‘completely untenable’
Updated 11 min 11 sec ago
Arab News
LONDON: Australia’s Labor government is under pressure from its own party activists to impose sanctions on Israel.
A motion will be put to members of the party drafted by the Labor Friends of Palestine group to call on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to impose measures on people and groups involved in war crimes in Gaza and the displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank. It also calls on the government to “redouble” efforts to secure a ceasefire.
LFP’s Peter Moss told The Guardian: “There is a deep frustration that Australia has failed to move beyond words and take effective action under international law to protect the Palestinian people and hold Israel accountable.”
He added: “We are seeing a surge in anger and frustration among Labor members and the broader community. Labor Friends of Palestine is signing up a stream of new members horrified by the genocide.
“There are many Labor voters and supporters who cannot accept Australia’s failure to act effectively under international law to stop the starvation.”
Last week, Australia condemned Israel’s months-long blockade of the Gaza Strip, signing a statement alongside 22 other nations including the UK, Canada and New Zealand.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong said Israel “cannot allow the suffering” in Gaza to continue, and statements by several Israeli ministers about the situation in the Palestinian enclave are “abhorrent and outrageous.”
Wong made the remarks after holding talks with her Israeli counterpart Gideon Saar on Friday.
But the Australian government did not go as far as to say it was considering targeted sanctions, unlike fellow signatories the UK, Canada and France, which is co-chairing a UN meeting in June on Palestinian statehood with Saudi Arabia. Australia is set to participate in the conference.
Moss told The Guardian: “At a minimum, Australia should immediately support the statement from the UK, France and Canada and prepare sanctions targeted at Israeli officials responsible for using starvation as a weapon of war.”
On Monday, Albanese called Israel’s blockade — preventing vital aid reaching millions of Palestinian civilians — “completely untenable” and “an outrage,” adding that he had conveyed his feelings personally to Israeli President Isaac Herzog.
Labor MP Ed Husic praised Albanese’s comments on ABC radio station on Tuesday, but said Australia needs to do more to pressure Israel and alleviate the suffering of Palestinians.
He added that sanctions of individuals and organizations are “probably under consideration” by the government to “exert maximum international pressure to stop this blockade.”
At an event for Gaza at Parliament House on Tuesday night, Sen. David Pocock, an independent, said: “If the horror unfolding in Gaza is not our country’s red line for stronger action, then I don’t know what is.”
Mohammed Mustafa, a British doctor who has been working in Gaza, also spoke at the event, calling on the Australian government to do more.
“You don’t have to be a major player to feed children. You don’t have to be a major player to heal children,” he said. “We need healers in the Middle East, and Australia can be the healer. It can lead the world.”
Greece drafts tougher law for rejected asylum seekers, PM says
Migration remains a politically charged issue in Greece
Mitsotakis has pledged to toughen his stance
Updated 28 May 2025
Reuters
ATHENS: Greece has prepared legislation that will introduce tougher penalties for rejected asylum seekers and speed up returns to their home countries, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Wednesday.
The Mediterranean nation was on the frontline of a 2015-2016 migration crisis when more than a million people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and Africa crossed into Europe.
The surge in arrivals triggered calls for countries on Europe’s southern frontier like Greece and Italy to shore up their borders.
The numbers have since fallen. But migration remains a politically charged issue in Greece, and Mitsotakis has pledged to toughen his stance.
“Penalties will be heavier for those who enter the country illegally or stay in our country, if their asylum application is being rejected,” Mitsotakis told a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, which discussed a new draft law on illegal migration.
Mitsotakis said the bill will also aim to speed up returns through a “more effective and fair mechanism.” The regulations will need parliamentary approval before taking effect.
Migrant flows to Greece dropped 30 percent in the first four months of this year compared to the previous year as fewer people entered along its eastern border with Turkiye.
But sea arrivals from Libya to the outlying islands of Crete and Gavdos have surged in recent months along a new smuggling route on the Mediterranean Sea. Thousands of rejected asylum seekers are stranded in Greece.
In order to accelerate asylum processes and reduce pressure on asylum systems, the EU’s executive last week proposed amending European law to allow member states to deport rejected asylum seekers if they can be sent to a third country deemed safe by the bloc.