trade

US pushes against overproduction with eye on China at G20 meeting

BY BEIYI SEOW

  • "We're releasing a Milwaukee framework to take coordinated action on steel excess capacity," top US trade official Jamieson Greer told reporters Wednesday.
  • The United States is pushing for action against excess industrial capacity that drives prices down unfairly, Washington's top trade envoy said Wednesday on the sidelines of a G20 meeting, with some countries -- excluding China -- agreeing to a plan that includes reducing subsidies.
  • "We're releasing a Milwaukee framework to take coordinated action on steel excess capacity," top US trade official Jamieson Greer told reporters Wednesday.
The United States is pushing for action against excess industrial capacity that drives prices down unfairly, Washington's top trade envoy said Wednesday on the sidelines of a G20 meeting, with some countries -- excluding China -- agreeing to a plan that includes reducing subsidies.
The developments came as officials from the Group of 20 major economies convened in the Midwestern city of Milwaukee over two days, with a group of countries separately agreeing on a framework to counter "persistent" excess steel production.
Overcapacity is a criticism often leveled against China, with accusations that it produces more than it consumes, flooding markets. Beijing rejects these claims.
"We're releasing a Milwaukee framework to take coordinated action on steel excess capacity," top US trade official Jamieson Greer told reporters Wednesday.
"Every country will do what they think is appropriate. We want to coordinate those measures," Greer added. "The United States has taken robust measures, and it probably makes sense for other countries to do that too."
He did not elaborate on whether he meant for countries to raise trade barriers on Chinese steel.
The framework was released after a meeting of the Global Forum on Steel Excess Capacity. Its 28 members include the European Union, Australia, Japan and South Korea -- but not China.
Asked about his message to partners this week on overcapacity, China's international trade representative Li Chenggang told AFP early Wednesday that G20 members had yet to discuss the topic.
Besides plans to reduce or eliminate "market-distorting subsidies," members of the steel global forum also agreed to boost data sharing to help identify "suspicious patterns of steel trade," according to the framework.
It added that, if needed, members would also take "trade measures" against countries that overproduce. Such measures could include tariffs.

Few breakthroughs 

As G20 trade ministers opened talks Wednesday, a traditional "family photo" was taken twice, allowing European leaders to be separated from Russia's representative, sources told AFP.
European leaders have declined to appear with Russia in G20 photos, with some noting this year that doing so sends a troubling message following Moscow's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. 
US President Donald Trump's global tariffs also cast a pall over the G20 talks, pushing countries to seek cooperation outside the world's biggest economy.
The meetings come amid a deepening US-Canada trade war, waves of US tariffs and Trump's investigations into member countries over excess industrial capacity.
Analysts expect few breakthroughs as trade tensions simmer.
Countries are seeking deals with the Trump administration, with India pushing to get a trade pact over the finish line. Brazil said it held a "constructive" in-person meeting with Greer too.
Still, the threat of further tariffs looms even over those that have struck deals, as US investigations into overcapacity target 16 trading partners including China, the EU, Japan and India.
Polish Finance Minister Andrzej Domanski urged Wednesday for a lowering of trade barriers.
"I do hope that our US partners will stick to all settlements that were made," he added, referring to an earlier deal between the United States and the European Union to cap Trump's duties on the bloc at 15 percent.
Of such tariff deals, Greer told reporters Tuesday: "We will certainly take them into account."
But he added that he was not in a rush to reach a pact with Canada, where certain products now face a US ban due to their trade spat.
"Eventually, it will happen," he said.
Also on the agenda this week are efforts to eliminate forced labor and the targeting of food access to pressure others.
Domanski condemned "all actions taken by Russia against the export of agriculture products from Ukraine" in their war.
Poland is not a permanent G20 member but has been invited to the table this year as Washington holds the grouping's rotating presidency. In turn, US officials have excluded South Africa.
The G20 trade ministerial comes after finance ministers met in Asheville, setting the stage for a leaders' summit in Miami.
The G20 comprises 19 nations plus the EU and the African Union.
bys/pnb

police

UK PM says 'strong indications' Iran involved in airbase incident

  • "There are strong indications that Iran played a part in what happened over the weekend at RAF Fairford," Burnham told the BBC, referring to Sunday's bomb scare near the airbase in southwest England, which is used by the US military in its war against Iran.
  • British Prime Minister Andy Burnham on Wednesday said there were "strong indications" Iran was involved in suspicious activity at a UK airbase that triggered a major security incident this weekend.
  • "There are strong indications that Iran played a part in what happened over the weekend at RAF Fairford," Burnham told the BBC, referring to Sunday's bomb scare near the airbase in southwest England, which is used by the US military in its war against Iran.
British Prime Minister Andy Burnham on Wednesday said there were "strong indications" Iran was involved in suspicious activity at a UK airbase that triggered a major security incident this weekend.
"There are strong indications that Iran played a part in what happened over the weekend at RAF Fairford," Burnham told the BBC, referring to Sunday's bomb scare near the airbase in southwest England, which is used by the US military in its war against Iran.
"Of course it remains an ongoing, complex, and serious police investigation," said Burnham.
Iran's embassy in London earlier said it "categorically rejects and strongly condemns" speculation it was involved in the incident, while Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted on X that Burnham was "barking up the wrong tree". 
Police said on Tuesday that no explosives were found at the scene. The nature of the threat has not been explained by officials.
Burnham's comments are the first official confirmation from UK authorities that Iran may have had a hand in the incident, which saw three white vans appearing to head towards RAF Fairford in the early hours of Sunday.
A local resident who rang the police said she saw a group of masked men near the vans, which were blocking a road in a village next to the military base.

Growing confusion

The case was plunged into confusion when UK police released on bail five British men it had arrested on Sunday on suspicion of explosives and terrorism offences.
After three days of investigations, including using a bomb disposal team, police said Tuesday they had found no explosives in the vehicles, but they had retrieved a "quantity of petrol".
Then on Wednesday, The Times newspaper reported that the incident had been foiled after one of the five suspects tipped off the police before the group was apprehended.
US President Donald Trump and his Secretary of State Marco Rubio had previously indicated that intelligence bodies were aware of the suspects and that a foreign state could be involved, but UK officials had not weighed in.
"We have been waiting to confirm what we could say, but we can now confirm our belief that Iran played a part," Burnham told Sky News.
Speculation was rife that Iran or another hostile state could have been involved, after Tehran previously warned London against allowing its military bases to be used by Washington.
Britain gave the US the greenlight to use RAF Fairford for defensive strikes against Iran, drawing Tehran's ire and unease from some residents in the Gloucestershire countryside where the base is located.
bur-pdw/des

defense

Hegseth says US cut number of generals, admirals by 20%

BY W.G. DUNLOP

  • - Cutting 'fat' - Hegseth ordered major cuts to the US military -- including a 10-percent reduction to the overall number of generals and admirals, and a 20-percent decrease in the highest four-star ranks -- in May 2025.
  • Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Wednesday that the United States has slashed the number of its generals and admirals by 20 percent, in a move he said is aimed at "accountability."
  • - Cutting 'fat' - Hegseth ordered major cuts to the US military -- including a 10-percent reduction to the overall number of generals and admirals, and a 20-percent decrease in the highest four-star ranks -- in May 2025.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Wednesday that the United States has slashed the number of its generals and admirals by 20 percent, in a move he said is aimed at "accountability."
Hegseth suggested the cuts targeted officers who failed to get on board with his efforts to ensure the military is focused on war-fighting rather than the "woke" policies of previous administrations, describing the reductions as an "accomplishment."
"The number-crunchers say we fired 10 percent of the generals and admirals across the force," Hegseth told troops at the Quantico military base, saying: "We've also reduced the overall number of general officer slots by an additional 10 percent."
"So yes, 20 percent reduction across the board," he said. "The media calls that a purge. I call it accountability, and long overdue."
The address to junior officers and enlisted personnel at Quantico came a year after a similar speech to top officers in which Hegseth said the US military was too fat, too focused on leftist "woke" ideas, and in need of major shake-up.
He said Wednesday that top officers who "responded positively" to the previous speech are "leading newly focused and newly empowered and disciplined formations," while those who did not "no longer work here."
"We are no longer the woke department, or the weak department," Hegseth said.
"Simple translation of that: no fatties, no trannies, no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals. Just warriors -- just tough, ready, committed troops."

Cutting 'fat'

Hegseth ordered major cuts to the US military -- including a 10-percent reduction to the overall number of generals and admirals, and a 20-percent decrease in the highest four-star ranks -- in May 2025.
There were 831 active duty US generals and admirals as of the end of that month, but Pentagon figures from the end of July 2026 -- the latest available -- showed there were actually more top officers -- a total of 851.
Asked to clarify if the 20 percent cuts had been completed or were still ongoing, the Pentagon said: "We have nothing further to provide beyond the secretary's comments."
During his confirmation hearing in January 2025, Hegseth argued that the Pentagon's bureaucracy was top-heavy and in need of cuts.
"It's going to be my job, working with those that we hire and those inside the administration, to identify those places where fat can be cut, so it can go toward lethality," he told lawmakers at the time.
Since returning to office early last year, Trump has overseen a purge of top military personnel, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, general Charles "CQ" Brown, whom he fired without explanation in February 2025.
Other senior officers pushed out include the heads of the US Army, Navy and Coast Guard, the general who headed the National Security Agency, the vice chief of staff of the US Air Force, a Navy admiral assigned to NATO, and three top military lawyers.
The chief of staff of the Air Force also announced his retirement without explanation just two years into a four-year term, while the head of US Southern Command retired a year into his tenure.
Hegseth has insisted the president is simply choosing the leaders he wants, but Democratic lawmakers have raised concerns about the potential politicization of the traditionally neutral US military.
wd/pnb

Israel

Israel PM hails Indian pilot of rerouted flight for averting disaster

BY NIR KAFRI WITH AFP'S TEAM IN SAUDI ARABIA

  • Footage shared by the premier's office on Wednesday evening showed Netanyahu meeting the passengers of the flight at Tel Aviv airport and embracing a man in a bloodied shirt.
  • Israel's leader credited the Indian pilot of a Dubai-Tel Aviv flight, as well as the aircraft's passengers, with averting catastrophe Wednesday after the man was attacked by his co-pilot, sparking a fight for control of the aircraft and forcing an emergency landing.
  • Footage shared by the premier's office on Wednesday evening showed Netanyahu meeting the passengers of the flight at Tel Aviv airport and embracing a man in a bloodied shirt.
Israel's leader credited the Indian pilot of a Dubai-Tel Aviv flight, as well as the aircraft's passengers, with averting catastrophe Wednesday after the man was attacked by his co-pilot, sparking a fight for control of the aircraft and forcing an emergency landing.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the co-pilot of the flydubai jet had been trying to crash it and kill all its passengers, with Israel's foreign ministry denouncing the incident as "an attempted terrorist attack" aimed at damaging the country's relationship with one of its key Middle Eastern partners.
Passengers gave a similar account of the incident, describing rushing the cockpit after the plane suddenly plummeted, losing around 17,000 feet of altitude in the span of a minute, according to the Flightradar24 website.
Flydubai said all the passengers -- of whom 166 out of 174 were Israeli, according to media reports -- were safe, adding that the reasons for the altercation were unknown.
AFPTV images later showed another flydubai plane carrying the passengers touch down at Tel Aviv airport, hours after their initial flight was diverted to Saudi Arabia's Tabuk.
"During the flight, as they approached the country, one of the pilots stabbed the other pilot, and apparently tried to crash the plane with everyone on board," Netanyahu said in a video message.
"I salute these heroes," he said of the passengers, adding "they prevented a major disaster".
He later hailed the pilot who was wounded -- identified as Indian national Smit Machchhar -- "for his extraordinary bravery", praising him for fighting back despite being wounded and "preventing a catastrophic mid-air disaster". 
The Indian embassy said Machchhar was being treated at a Saudi hospital, while the company operating the airport in Tabuk said the co-pilot was also found to be injured upon landing.
Footage shared by the premier's office on Wednesday evening showed Netanyahu meeting the passengers of the flight at Tel Aviv airport and embracing a man in a bloodied shirt.
"Is that from him (the assailant)?" the premier asks, pointing at the stains, as the man replies in the affirmative.

'Out of control'

Passenger Miryam Shira Ohayon said the plane was "pretty much out of control" as the incident unfolded over Jordan.
"So the co-pilot tried to murder the pilot and basically carry out a suicide attack on the plane," she told reporters by speakerphone held up by her mother, who was waiting at Ben Gurion Airport.
"It was really on the way to crashing, and it was simply the resourcefulness of many people who took control of the co-pilot and neutralised him," she said.
The airline later said it was another "on-duty flydubai crew travelling on the flight, who diverted and landed the aircraft safely".
It also announced it was suspending flights to Israel while the incident was being investigated.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz described the incident as "an attempted jihadist terror attack", but did not identify his source for assigning a motive. 
The director general of Israel's foreign ministry called it "an attempted terrorist attack against Israelis, the United Arab Emirates, and the Abraham Accords", referring to the peace deal signed by the two countries in 2020.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said he had spoken with top UAE diplomat Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, with the pair agreeing "to collaborate against extremist elements seeking to harm security and undermine stability".

'A long day'

Describing the flight's sudden plunge, passenger Almog Italie told AFP it was like "we were having very big turbulence" before fighting erupted near the cockpit.
"The other passengers from the front took over control," he told AFP via video call from Saudi Arabia.
"It has been a long day, luckily for us it's ended," Italie said hours later after landing in Tel Aviv.
Fellow passenger Chaim Nazarovitz said the ordeal had been "very terrifying", adding that for a moment he felt like he was "not among the living".
Israel's Kan public broadcaster and Channel 12 reported that the Israeli military had scrambled fighter jets after fears of a possible hijacking.
In a video from inside the plane, one passenger -- blood dripping from an open wound on his head -- pleaded for assistance and said they were descending into Saudi Arabia. 
Israel has no formal ties with the Gulf kingdom, but Italie said the group received a "very warm" welcome there.
The incident comes months into a regional war that erupted in late February with US-Israeli strikes on Iran.
It also comes just ahead of Israeli elections due to be held at the end of October.
On Tuesday, Netanyahu said there were "indications" that Israel's enemies could try to attack ahead of elections, and was accused of "fear-mongering" by the opposition chief.
bur-ds/smw/ser

migrants

UK-France Channel migrant exchange deal scrapped: London

BY AKSHATA KAPOOR WITH ESTELLE EMONET IN PARIS

  •   - Smugglers jailed -   The deal enabled Britain to deport some small boat arrivals deemed not to have the right to stay.
  • A year-old deal between France and Britain to return migrants crossing the Channel illegally on small boats has come to an end, the UK interior ministry said Wednesday.
  •   - Smugglers jailed -   The deal enabled Britain to deport some small boat arrivals deemed not to have the right to stay.
A year-old deal between France and Britain to return migrants crossing the Channel illegally on small boats has come to an end, the UK interior ministry said Wednesday.
"The government's pilot with France to remove asylum seekers in exchange for an equal number of legal migrants is no longer processing new cases," the Home Office said, confirming the end of the so-called "one in, one out" deal launched last August.
The French interior ministry told AFP earlier on Wednesday it was in talks to "withdraw" from the agreement, which was due to expire on Thursday.
The deal was agreed under former UK prime minister Keir Starmer last year in a bid to help a post-Brexit reset by easing what had become a major source of tension between the neighbours.
The pilot scheme was initially agreed to last for a year and had been extended until October 1. But the deal faced setbacks including legal challenges and French reluctance to renew it.
French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said in June that he had "clearly announced" to Britain that this "pilot agreement... was not intended to be renewed beyond October 1, 2026."
And the newspaper Le Monde said current UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham had pressed French President Emmanuel Macron during talks in September to keep the deal alive but "Paris was in a hurry to end the cooperation on controlling migrant flows."
London would have "willingly seen it continue", a UK government source said, adding the pilot "did not reach our desired scale".
UK interior minister Shabana Mahmood acknowledged in parliament this month that the deal has "not been without its challenges" and "the numbers are still relatively small".
"What has been more operationally difficult is to scale up very large numbers of removals every week into the French system," she added.
 

Smugglers jailed

 
The deal enabled Britain to deport some small boat arrivals deemed not to have the right to stay.
In return, London was to accept an equal number of migrants from France who were likely to have their asylum claim granted, giving priority to nationalities most vulnerable to smugglers and those with ties in Britain.
According to UK figures, some 1,500 individuals had been returned to France, and just under the same number had in turn been accepted by Britain.
The agreement aimed to target the business model of smugglers who charge migrants huge amounts to make the perilous and sometimes deadly journey.
The deal, which was criticised by rights groups who said it was treating humans as commodities, initially targeted 2,600 exchanges.
On Monday, three migrants, including a 10-year-old boy, died off the French coast while trying to cross the Channel to Britain, French authorities said.
At least 22 people have died this year trying to cross the Channel, according to an AFP tally based on official French and British sources.
As of Tuesday, some 19,196 people had crossed the Channel from France so far in 2026, down 42 percent year-on-year.
A French court on Wednesday sentenced six men to between six and 10 years in prison over the deaths of at least 31 people in the Channel in November 2021, the deadliest accident involving migrants trying to reach the English coast.
The court said the tragedy was caused by "individuals driven by greed, with utter disregard for human life".
est-sjw-aks/jkb/rlp

EU

'Welcome back,' says Macron, as UK PM opens door to EU return

BY PETER HUTCHISON WITH UMBERTO BACCHI IN BRUSSELS

  • Macron, speaking in Madrid after talks with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, welcomed the idea.
  • Andy Burnham put the idea of Britain rejoining the EU on the table Wednesday, breaking a taboo for a UK prime minister and leading French President Emmanuel Macron to declare in English: "Welcome back."
  • Macron, speaking in Madrid after talks with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, welcomed the idea.
Andy Burnham put the idea of Britain rejoining the EU on the table Wednesday, breaking a taboo for a UK prime minister and leading French President Emmanuel Macron to declare in English: "Welcome back."
Burnham reopened the divisive Brexit debate by saying his centre-left Labour government could go "all the way" and propose membership of the bloc as one possible way to boost relationships with Europe.
Right-wing rivals immediately criticised the comments, as the UK appeared to be gearing up for a re-run of the bitter "Brexit wars" that dominated politics after the contentious 2016 vote to leave the European Union.
Burnham, premier since July after Labour MPs turfed out Keir Starmer, told his party's annual conference in Manchester on Tuesday that Britain's departure in 2020 had done "more harm than good".
Brexit had triggered "a decade of low growth" and the country must "decide on a long-term relationship" with its largest trading partner, he said.
Burnham promised to set out "different options" closer to a planned summit with the 27-member bloc later this year.
Possibilities that could be looked at included joining the European single market and customs union, "or we could go all the way", Burnham told BBC radio on Wednesday.
"We have to look at what is doable, and what would be the pros and cons of each" option, he added.
Macron, speaking in Madrid after talks with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, welcomed the idea.
"If the British want to come back and if the prime minister is moving in that direction, I think that is very good news both for his country and for Europeans," Macron said.
"Come back," he added.
Sanchez echoed Macron's comments, saying if the UK asks to rejoin "then of course Spain would applaud it and open its arms again to a brotherly people".
European Commission spokesman Balazs Ujvari said it was for London to chart a way forward.
"We remain open to engaging on the options it may put forward," he said.
 

Brexit polls

 
Britain's right-wing Conservative party took the country out of the EU after Britons voted to leave by 52 percent to 48 percent.
A poll by Survation in June found that 55 percent of voters would opt to rejoin if a referendum was held again.
"I think Burnham is recognising the widespread view in the country that Brexit has failed," David Henig, an expert on UK-EU relations, told AFP.
Burnham is currently bound by Starmer's 2024 election-winning manifesto which ruled out joining a customs union, going back into the single market or allowing the return of freedom of movement with the EU.
He suggested to broadcaster ITV that if public opinion is "pointing towards" backing re-entry into the bloc, he might commit to another referendum in Labour's next election manifesto.
The next general election is not expected until 2029.
 

'Divisive'

 
Sandro Gozi, a European lawmaker who chairs a parliamentary initiative on EU-UK relations, told AFP Burnham's willingness to explore options offered a "historic opportunity" for the European Union.
But Anand Menon, director of the UK in a Changing Europe think-tank, was more cautious.
"All he seems to have said is: 'We'll have a conversation about it now'. There are quite a few people in his cabinet who would not want to see him spending a lot of time and effort dealing with Europe," he told AFP.
Richard Tice, deputy leader of the anti-EU Reform UK party, said Burnham was "trying to sneak us back into Brussels via the back door".
Public opinion appeared mixed on the streets of Manchester, during the party conference there.
Dougie Brown, a 38-year-old composer, warned: "It will be divisive again.
"I think there's so many other things we need to be sorting out rather than fighting about whether we're in the EU or not."
But stall owner Sally Jones, 52, said: "I'd like us to fully rejoin. I don't think there should be restrictions on travel for people. People coming to this country and us into Europe."
 

Reform criticism

 
Burnham has previously said he hoped Britain would return to the EU within his lifetime.
But during his successful campaign to return to parliament in June and replace Starmer in Downing Street, he insisted he did not want to "rerun" the Brexit debate.
 
The UK-EU summit may now be held in November, but no date has been confirmed.
Negotiations are believed to have stalled over British concerns about the EU's "Made in Europe" plans to protect certain industries.
bur-pdh/jkb/rlp

fraud

Turkey freezes ex-minister's assets as fund scandal grows

BY HAZEL WARD

  • A day later, regulators moved to address the crisis by placing seven companies into liquidation that hold 131 investment funds, whose assets are reportedly worth around $17 billion. 
  • Turkish prosecutors have moved to freeze the assets of a senior governing party official and former minister who resigned at the weekend over allegations she profited from an investment fund crisis. 
  • A day later, regulators moved to address the crisis by placing seven companies into liquidation that hold 131 investment funds, whose assets are reportedly worth around $17 billion. 
Turkish prosecutors have moved to freeze the assets of a senior governing party official and former minister who resigned at the weekend over allegations she profited from an investment fund crisis. 
The move involved the assets of Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya, a senior figure in President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruling AKP, and came on the eve of the reopening of parliament after the summer recess. 
Turkey has been wrestling with the fallout from an investment fund scandal that erupted this month with the collapse of what officials have called a "Ponzi-like" scheme. 
Kaya said late on Saturday she was resigning as one of AKP's deputy chairs after Turkey's main opposition Yeni Parti alleged she and her husband made millions trading shares within just five months, suggesting she had benefitted from insider information.  
While admitting nothing, Kaya -- who was Turkey's family minister from 2016 to 2018 -- said she was taking "political responsibility" to ensure that any investigation could be conducted "independently, impartially". 
In a statement late Tuesday, prosecutors said they had sent "a letter concerning the freezing of all assets" of Kaya and her husband, Ilyas Kaya, to "all the relevant institutions".

'Robbery of the century'

On Saturday, Yeni spokesman Gokhan Gunaydin said the party was seeking clarification over claims that Kaya invested 63 million lira ($1.3 million) in shares in April and sold them in September, earning a profit of around 1.3 billion lira ($26.5 million).
He also said her husband had allegedly invested 100 million lira and earned back 826 million lira, collectively netting the pair an alleged profit of nearly 2.2 billion lira ($45 million).
Gunaydin said it was "clear" Kaya had received insider information and pledged that the party would unveil more names this week. 
Several Turkish media sites said Kaya had given back the money she made, and has not yet been detained over the affair. 
"This name is the tip of the iceberg," Yeni leader Ozgur Ozel told a party meeting on Wednesday, describing the scandal as "the robbery of the century". 
The investment fund crisis is expected to dominate the agenda in parliament, which reopens on Thursday afternoon with Erdogan expected to give an address ahead of an evening reception. 

'AKP is a clean party': Erdogan

Justice Minister Akin Gurlek said investigators were looking into 217 suspects, of whom 56 had been remanded in custody while another 88 were granted conditional release. 
He said prosecutors were looking into "26 stocks deemed to be subject to speculative and manipulative transactions" along with the activities of "accounts that generated gains at an extraordinary rate over a short period of time". 
On Tuesday, Erdogan held a three-hour meeting with economic aides over the fund crisis, after earlier defending his party's record. 
"The AK Party is a clean party, just as its name suggests; it is a party true to its name. No one can tarnish this party's purity or stain that cleanliness," he told party cadres. 
"Without looking at their own pitch-black records, they even try to give us lessons in morality and political ethics. 'Get lost,' I tell them," he said of his political opponents. 
But Ozel hit back on Wednesday. 
"In the AK Party’s crooked system, neither your freedom, nor the money in your bank account, nor your right to information is safe," he said. 
The crisis erupted in mid-September when several funds said they were unable to satisfy investor redemption demands, sending Istanbul's main stock exchange tumbling. 
A day later, regulators moved to address the crisis by placing seven companies into liquidation that hold 131 investment funds, whose assets are reportedly worth around $17 billion. 
Turkey's Capital Markets Board (SPK) has said more than 455,000 individual investors have been affected. 
hmw-dla/ach 

pill

Polish activists open first abortion pill locker in Warsaw

BY KATARZYNA SKIBA

  • But no law penalises Polish women if they carry out their own abortion, for instance with pills ordered online. 
  • Polish activists have opened the country's first-ever abortion locker, allowing women to access pregnancy-terminating pills anonymously and immediately in the country with some of Europe's strictest abortion laws, an AFP photographer confirmed Wednesday. 
  • But no law penalises Polish women if they carry out their own abortion, for instance with pills ordered online. 
Polish activists have opened the country's first-ever abortion locker, allowing women to access pregnancy-terminating pills anonymously and immediately in the country with some of Europe's strictest abortion laws, an AFP photographer confirmed Wednesday. 
The small, colourfully painted locker, which activists call an "abortomat", consists of 22 compartments containing envelopes with medications allowing them to carry out medical abortions. 
"It's a feminist intervention meant to show just how upside‑down things are," Kinga Jelinska, director of the Women Help Women Foundation and co-founder of the Abortion Dream Team, told AFP. 
"We always think about how to make abortion care easier, more accessible, friendlier, more people‑centred," she added.
"It's simply logical and makes sense". 
The facility's location -- across the street from the Polish parliament, which has failed to follow through on its pledges to relax the country's stringent abortion laws -- is purposefully symbolic. 
It was here that activists decided to open an abortion centre just over a year ago. 
Rather than a typical medical clinic, it provides women with access to resources, including pills, and a space to be able to seek support or carry out the pharmacological abortion. 
Abortion in Poland is legal only in two circumstances: when the pregnancy resulted from a criminal act -- such as rape or incest -- or if it threatens the mother's life or health. 
A 2020 decision by the Constitutional Tribunal, ruled that severe foetal abnormalities were not legal grounds for abortion.
Prior to this ruling, 98 percent of legal abortions in Poland were performed for this reason.  
The new restrictions set off a torrent of protests throughout the country, which became the largest mass demonstrations in Poland since the 1989 anti-communist movement.  
In the first half of 2025, only 846 legal abortions took place in Poland, according to data from the National Health Fund (NFZ) and the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.

Legal 'hack'

Several pregnant women have died in Polish hospitals in recent years, in many cases after doctors refused to carry out abortions following complications, including sepsis.  
But no law penalises Polish women if they carry out their own abortion, for instance with pills ordered online. 
It is a legal loophole activists say allows them to keep the centre operational. 
"The 'abortomat' is, in a way, a 'hack' on the law," Jelinska says. 
Assisting abortion is still punishable by up to three years in jail. 
The abortion centre has been met by protests from some conservative-Catholic groups in the traditionally staunchly religious country.  
Poland's incumbent centrist ruling coalition promised to reverse the most restrictive elements of Poland's abortion laws prior to their election in 2023 -- but internal disagreements among its different factions have brought this to a halt.
Any attempts to ease abortion laws via parliament would also likely face a veto by conservative-nationalist President Karol Nawrocki, who was endorsed by the then ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party that brought about and upheld the 2020 court ruling.
ks/cw

conflict

Russia targets Kyiv power supply as freezing winter approaches

BY PHIL HAZLEWOOD

  •   - 'Predictable' -   Prime Minister Sergiy Koretsky said Russia had been hitting Ukraine's energy infrastructure almost daily since the summer.
  • Russia hit Ukrainian energy infrastructure in a wave of deadly drone and missile strikes on Wednesday, prompting an urgent call for emergency preparations as freezing winter approaches.
  •   - 'Predictable' -   Prime Minister Sergiy Koretsky said Russia had been hitting Ukraine's energy infrastructure almost daily since the summer.
Russia hit Ukrainian energy infrastructure in a wave of deadly drone and missile strikes on Wednesday, prompting an urgent call for emergency preparations as freezing winter approaches.
Kyiv said it was Moscow's opening salvo in an expected campaign to try to knock out heating and power as the temperature plunges -- a tactic it has deployed throughout the grinding conflict.
At least four people were killed in and around Kyiv, including a young child found under the rubble of a demolished residential building, after another night of continuous air raid red alerts and repeated blasts.
Three others were killed across the country, said President Volodymyr Zelensky, who visited frontline troops and top commanders coordinating a fight-back against Russian forces in the east.
Across Kyiv, sirens screamed warning people to take cover in basement shelters and metro stations from ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as high-speed attack drones in the skies above.
In Moscow, Russia's defence ministry said it had conducted "a massive missile and drone strike" on Kyiv and the surrounding region that targeted the power infrastructure.
Ukraine's main energy provider DTEK confirmed that the grid was damaged and supplies to 8,000 households were affected. Engineers got the power back on, it said, but called it "another difficult night for the capital".
It later announced that emergency power outages had been implemented in Kyiv, without giving details on the number of people affected.
Generating equipment was also damaged at the Trypillia thermal power plant near Kyiv in a deliberate strike, said Sergiy Isachenko, the chief executive of the plant's operator PJSC Centrenergo.
Ukraine's weather service announced that the first overnight frosts were due in many parts of the country from Thursday.
Ensuring winter energy supply in Ukraine is critical. Russian strikes last year cut light and heating when temperatures fell to as low as -20C.
The prospect of a repeat has left many in Kyiv to consider whether to stay, alongside calls for the vulnerable and disabled people to relocate.
 

'Predictable'

 
Prime Minister Sergiy Koretsky said Russia had been hitting Ukraine's energy infrastructure almost daily since the summer.
"However, such a large-scale combined attack has taken place for the first time since the end of the last heating season," he wrote on Telegram.
"It was predictable," Ivan Danylevych, a 22-year-old student, told AFP on the streets of Kyiv.
"Why are they doing it? To frighten people. Pure terror. To make people exhausted and willing to make concessions on military issues."
The increase in attacks has left many people in Kyiv glued to their mobile phones, scouring Telegram channels and apps that track the skies for signs of approaching drones or missiles.
But Tetiana Ivashchuk, a university worker, said only one thing helps her -- coffee.
"The main thing is to stay calm," she added. "We can't change what's happening now... God willing, everything will be fine."
 
- Back-up power - 
 
Ukraine's energy system was already battered by previous attacks since the war began in February 2022 and the latest damage was being assessed, said Koretsky.
"Local authorities must check the readiness of back-up power systems for critical facilities in communities and complete all work on their installation and connection as quickly as possible," he added.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2024 issued arrest warrants for Russia's then military leaders over attacks on Ukraine's energy grid, saying they constituted a war crime that was causing "excessive harm" to civilians.
Wednesday's strikes hit residential buildings and businesses, sparking fires and widespread damage to property and cars, the authorities said.
Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said a driver at a local utility firm was killed when a warehouse was hit, while two others were killed elsewhere.
The emergency services said a child was found dead under the rubble of a residential building that was destroyed in the wider Kyiv region.
Russia has been deploying newer jet-powered drones that move faster and are harder to intercept than the traditional models, which are based on Iranian Shaheds.
Zelensky has repeatedly appealed to Ukraine's allies for more military support, including US-made interceptors against ballistic missiles.
But there is widespread concern about mounting civilian casualties on both sides, with an increase in long-range strikes and no progress on faltering peace talks.
burs-brw/rlp

oil

Oil companies close in on Venezuela despite hurdles

BY AHIANA FIGUEROA

  • Venezuela's government, which remains under control of the ruling Chavista movement -- named after late socialist firebrand Hugo Chavez -- blames years of tough US sanctions for crippling the industry.
  • Foreign oil companies scrambled for a slice of Venezuela's crude at an oil summit in Caracas this week despite years of sanctions, underinvestment and mismanagement that have crippled the once booming industry.
  • Venezuela's government, which remains under control of the ruling Chavista movement -- named after late socialist firebrand Hugo Chavez -- blames years of tough US sanctions for crippling the industry.
Foreign oil companies scrambled for a slice of Venezuela's crude at an oil summit in Caracas this week despite years of sanctions, underinvestment and mismanagement that have crippled the once booming industry.
Venezuela sits on the world's largest proven oil reserves, but its current production of one million barrels of crude per day falls far short of the three million it averaged decades ago, with experts attributing the decline to years of corruption and poor management.
The sold-out Venezuela International Oil and Gas Summit in Caracas, which runs until Wednesday, has attracted bosses from companies including European giants Repsol, Siemens, Maurel & Prom, US firm Hunt Oil Company, Qatari producer UCC Holding and Colombia's GeoPark.
"Venezuela is the place to be," Erik Keskula, director of exploration and production at UCC Oil and Gas Holding, said Tuesday.
US President Donald Trump, who wants to take charge of the country's oil industry, has piled pressure on interim leader Delcy Rodriguez, who took power after the United States toppled president Nicolas Maduro in a military raid in January.
Rodriguez has granted Washington access to a huge chunk of the country's crude reserves and signed agreements with foreign companies to look for, produce and export oil and gas.
North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP), the company at the heart of a massive US-Venezuela deal in August to operate 17 oil fields with proven reserves of about 65 billion barrels, was not present at the summit.
According to a White House report, Washington holds veto power over NABEP's board of directors, the majority of whom must be US citizens.
Critics in both the United States and Venezuela accuse Trump of holding the country to ransom after ousting Maduro and warning that Rodriguez could face a similar fate if she does not succumb to Washington's demands.
Rodriguez insists Venezuela retains control of its oil.
 

'Work to be done'

 
Organizers said hundreds of names were on a waiting list for the event, highlighting the industry buzz around Venezuela's oil sector re-opening after years of state control.
Venezuela's government, which remains under control of the ruling Chavista movement -- named after late socialist firebrand Hugo Chavez -- blames years of tough US sanctions for crippling the industry.
In 2019, during his first term in office, Trump imposed an embargo on Venezuelan oil in response to 2018 elections that were already marred by fraud allegations.
Venezuela's state-owned PDVSA oil giant was in freefall at the time, beset by corruption scandals, mismanagement and a crippling lack of investment. 
Oil output buckled under the weight of the sanctions.
"Real work remains on transparency, on governance, on ensuring that every dollar of revenue serves its intended purpose," said Michael Garcia, deputy chief of mission at the US Embassy in Caracas.
"But the direction is unmistakable," he said. "Where there was stagnation, there is now investment."
Venezuela's chronic electricity shortage was a key theme at the event, which was itself hit by two power cuts.
Hunter Hunt, CEO of Hunt Energy Holdings, said he was confident that such "infrastructural weaknesses" could be solved "quite quickly."
 

'Ambitious goal'

 
Companies already operating in Venezuela are pushing to boost production.
Ludwing Mercado, Repsol's operations manager for Venezuela, said the company aimed to increase oil production by 50 percent in its oil fields in the country's west.
When French firm Maurel & Prom secured a US license to operate in Venezuela this year -- along with BP, Chevron, Eni, Repsol and Shell -- bosses were "perhaps overly optimistic at the start," deputy general manager Cesar Alvarez said.
"We drew up an action plan, but we ran up against reality and [had to] delay certain activities," he said.
Despite the challenges, Maurel & Prom expects to close the year with an output of 23,000 barrels per day.
afc/pgf/atm/cb/mjf

Global Edition

Romanian parliament rejects pro-EU PM candidate

BY ANI SANDU

  • A pro-European coalition government collapsed in May when the governing Social Democrats, together with the opposition far right, ousted liberal Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan.
  • The Romanian parliament on Wednesday rejected a pro-European liberal as prime minister, prolonging a political crisis seen as fuelling the rising far right.
  • A pro-European coalition government collapsed in May when the governing Social Democrats, together with the opposition far right, ousted liberal Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan.
The Romanian parliament on Wednesday rejected a pro-European liberal as prime minister, prolonging a political crisis seen as fuelling the rising far right.
Liberal European Parliament member Siegfried Muresan failed to get lawmakers' backing with just 182 of the 233 votes needed to approve his government, according to the official count.
This brings the prospects of snap elections closer, but pro-EU President Nicusor Dan has warned they would not solve the crisis facing the eastern European country.
Dan said he would nominate a new PM candidate on Monday afternoon, after holding talks with the leaders of the parliamentary parties. 
"I ask the parties to come this time with solutions that can succeed," Dan said in a media statement after the vote. 
"The parties must each make concessions so that consensus can be reached."
A pro-European coalition government collapsed in May when the governing Social Democrats, together with the opposition far right, ousted liberal Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan.
Since then, president Dan has nominated three candidates for the post of prime minister but all failed to form a government.
 

'Reform agenda'

 
Muresan, 45, had promised a pro-EU cabinet with "an ambitious reform agenda".
As the parliament's plenary session began on Wednesday, Muresan said the choice was between "a Romania that moves forward and one that stands still", between "reform and preserving the status quo". 
But analysts had said Muresan's chances were slim as the centre-left Social Democratic Party (PSD), the largest party, has refused to back him, demanding the premiership for itself.
After the vote, its leader Sorin Grindeanu wrote on Facebook that the party was ready to "take on the task of rebuilding Romania", later telling reporters that it was time for a solution "before it's too late for Romania's economy".
The main far-right party, the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), also rejected Muresan.
"Despite all the threats, we will not vote for this puppet government," AUR leader George Simion said on Wednesday in parliament ahead of the vote.
Currently the country's second biggest party, AUR is leading in two recent voter opinion polls, one at almost 40 percent, the other at 36 percent.
The current crisis was sparked when the PSD, which holds 129 seats in parliament, quit the ruling coalition over austerity measures taken by Bolojan and teamed up with the far right to oust him.
President Dan has accused the political parties of showing "more concern for electoral matters and far less concern for the national interest".
 

Rising far right

 
The far right -- which comprises roughly a third of parliament -- has threatened to impeach Dan if he does not call early elections once the conditions are met.
Romania -- a member of the EU and NATO that borders Ukraine -- has not held snap elections since the fall of Communism in 1989.
Political analyst Cristian Pirvulescu told AFP he expected Dan to end up choosing another candidate for prime minister -- possibly a technocrat -- before resorting to snap elections which, he predicted, would lead to another fragmented parliament but with an emboldened far right.
"Due to political instability, Romania finds itself in a very complicated economic situation," Pirvulescu told AFP. 
The country of 19 million has been struggling for months with the highest public deficit and inflation in the European Union.
In August, credit rating agencies said Romania's outlook remained negative because the political crisis brought a risk that deficit-cutting reforms would lose momentum.
Romania has faced heightened political uncertainty since December 2024, when the presidential election was annulled over allegations of Russian interference on behalf of far-right candidate Calin Georgescu.
Dan won a rerun of the presidential vote in May 2025, beating AUR leader Simion.
ani/rlp

execution

Court halts Tennessee's first execution of woman in 200 years

  • Pike, the only woman on Tennessee's death row, had been set to die by lethal injection at 10:00 am (1500 GMT) on Wednesday at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.
  • A US court on Wednesday halted the lethal injection of a 50-year-old female killer that would have been Tennessee's first execution of a woman in more than 200 years.
  • Pike, the only woman on Tennessee's death row, had been set to die by lethal injection at 10:00 am (1500 GMT) on Wednesday at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.
A US court on Wednesday halted the lethal injection of a 50-year-old female killer that would have been Tennessee's first execution of a woman in more than 200 years.
Barely an hour before Christa Pike was due to die by lethal injection, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling to stay the execution, three decades after she murdered a classmate.
Pike was 18 when she and her boyfriend beat and killed Colleen Slemmer, 19, at a job training camp for young people.
The killing gained national attention after Slemmer's body was found with a pentagram, often seen as a satanic symbol, carved in her chest.
In the United States, only 18 women have been executed since 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
"The interests of justice and the finality of Pike's impending execution compel the entry of a short stay of execution in order to properly analyze the parties' fully briefed arguments," the court order said.
The court is set to review whether allegations that Pike was sexually abused as a child were fully considered.
The case has sparked debate over capital punishment for young criminals.
Pike's lawyers argue she should be granted clemency due to her young age and mental health issues at the time of the killing.
"She was 18 when she committed her crime, and she was deeply mentally ill," they wrote in a clemency petition to Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, who said he would not intervene.
The US Supreme Court rejected Tuesday an application for a stay of execution, which had argued that Pike's history as a victim of sexual assault, post-traumatic stress disorder and a blood condition meant a lethal injection would cause "needless suffering."
Pike, the only woman on Tennessee's death row, had been set to die by lethal injection at 10:00 am (1500 GMT) on Wednesday at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.
Independent UN rights experts have urged the US government and Tennessee authorities to "immediately halt" the execution and commute her death sentence.
"Pike's execution would mark the culmination of a trajectory of severe physical and psychological suffering marked by childhood abuse and nearly three decades of solitary confinement on death row," they said.
sst-bgs/acb

conflict

Israelis march between once-closed West Bank settlements

BY LOUIS BAUDOIN-LAARMAN

  • Since Netanyahu returned to power in 2023 leading one of the most right-wing governments in Israeli history, 104 new settlements have been approved in the West Bank, where more than 500,000 settlers now live among three million Palestinians.
  • Hundreds of Israelis marched Wednesday  between newly rebuilt settlements in the northern West Bank to celebrate a Jewish holiday, a symbolic show of their return to an area until recently almost fully Palestinian.
  • Since Netanyahu returned to power in 2023 leading one of the most right-wing governments in Israeli history, 104 new settlements have been approved in the West Bank, where more than 500,000 settlers now live among three million Palestinians.
Hundreds of Israelis marched Wednesday  between newly rebuilt settlements in the northern West Bank to celebrate a Jewish holiday, a symbolic show of their return to an area until recently almost fully Palestinian.
Settlers of all ages carried traditional bundles of fruit and branches used to celebrate the ongoing week-long holiday of Sukkot, or the Feast of the Tabernacles, with inflatable castles and clowns bringing a holiday atmosphere to the hilltop above Palestinian communities.
The settlers walked between Ganim and Kadim, settlements that are powerful symbols for their movement. The Israeli government dismantled them in 2005 under a policy meant to disengage from Palestinian population centres, and they were rebuilt this year under pro-settlement Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The dirt road connecting the settlements was flanked by dozens of uprooted olive trees, a reminder of the Palestinian presence forced out to make way for the settlements.
"Our wonderful people of Israel defeated Oslo," senior settler leader Yossi Dagan told the crowd, referring to the 1990s peace process with the Palestinians.
"Twenty-one years ago, when they uprooted the four communities, the disengagement from land was an attempt at disengagement from an idea, from Zionism," he said.
"Together we will bring hundreds of thousands of Jews to our northern Samaria," he said using the area's biblical name.
Kadim was dotted with Israeli flags and the army deployed to protect the settlers, a stark contrast to the Palestinian city of Jenin, below, where last year Israeli forces killed a number of Palestinians in an offensive.
On the road leading towards Israel, dozens of prefabricated homes were waiting to be installed to expand the settlements and entrench the Israeli hold on the area.
"To be here specifically, and for the holiday, brings me twice as much joy," Yishai Gerstle, 35, told AFP. 
Gertsle came with his wife and three children from a city inside Israel, but grew up in a settlement of the northern West Bank and had protested the closing of Ganim as a teenager.
"It's amazing to come back with my kids and show them what we left and where we're going back," he said.
Since Netanyahu returned to power in 2023 leading one of the most right-wing governments in Israeli history, 104 new settlements have been approved in the West Bank, where more than 500,000 settlers now live among three million Palestinians.
Approval of settlements -- all illegal under international law -- has picked up ahead of close-fought elections on October 27 in which Netanyahu is hoping to shore up his base.
Violence has soared in recent months in the West Bank, with settlers attacking Palestinians or their property on a nearly daily basis, and a Palestinian's recent shooting death of a settler.
lba/sct/ris

commission

Truth commission demands compensation for Sweden's Sami people

BY JOHANNES LEDEL

  • In June 2023, a commission set up by Norway's parliament delivered a damning report on historical injustices against and attempts to assimilate indigenous Sami, Kvens and other ethnic Finnish people, and in November 2024, Norway's parliament formally apologised to the minorities.
  • A Swedish truth commission on Wednesday urged the state to apologise for injustices committed against its indigenous Sami people, including assimilation programmes, and provide compensation and redress.
  • In June 2023, a commission set up by Norway's parliament delivered a damning report on historical injustices against and attempts to assimilate indigenous Sami, Kvens and other ethnic Finnish people, and in November 2024, Norway's parliament formally apologised to the minorities.
A Swedish truth commission on Wednesday urged the state to apologise for injustices committed against its indigenous Sami people, including assimilation programmes, and provide compensation and redress.
The Truth Commission for the Sami People presented 71 proposals to the government, authorities, museums and Church of Sweden "to acknowledge and take responsibility, compensate for the human rights of the Sami people and find a way forward based on equality and respect" for those rights.
"Discrimination against Sami, racism, hatred and threats must cease," the commission said in a statement hours before it presented its final report to the government.
There are an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 Sami people across the vast Arctic wilderness of northern Finland, Norway, Sweden and Russia's Kola peninsula.
They have lived by hunting, fishing and reindeer herding for thousands of years, and been subjected to colonisation for centuries.
Sweden's truth commission, set up in 2021, was tasked with charting and investigating the policies affecting the Sami and their implementation.
 

Children taken away

 
The commission presented its final report to the government at a ceremony in the city of Ostersund, known as Staare in the Southern Sami language.
"The Commission's report shows that, for a long time, the state and the church controlled who was considered Sami and the conditions of Sami life," the head of the commission Lena Nyberg said.
Among other abuses, Nyberg said that "children were forced away from their families to be raised in nomad schools, work homes and boarding schools, in order to be segregated or assimilated."   
"This has of course affected the entire lives of these children, their children's lives, and their grandchildren's lives," Nyberg said.
She also said the state still to this day was "violating the human rights of the Sami".
"The state must acknowledge and offer compensation for this, and create the conditions needed to heal wounds and be able to move forward," Nyberg said.
Reindeer herding has been a bone of contention for years, with the Sami insisting their land rights in vast swathes of the north are at threat from industry, including mining, forestry, wind and hydro power required for the green transition. 
In 2021, the Lutheran Church of Sweden apologised for centuries of "severe violations of human dignity" against the Sami people.
 

Forced Christian conversion

 
A central part of the commission's work has been to gather testimony from Sami people about their experiences, collating some 300 interviews and written accounts.
The persecution of the Sami, Europe's only indigenous people, goes back to the 17th century, when the state began colonising and exploiting their resource-rich lands.
They were first brutally forced to adopt Christianity and abandon their shamanism, before assimilation efforts intensified in the 19th and 20th centuries as the far north's economic importance grew.
In June 2023, a commission set up by Norway's parliament delivered a damning report on historical injustices against and attempts to assimilate indigenous Sami, Kvens and other ethnic Finnish people, and in November 2024, Norway's parliament formally apologised to the minorities.
In December 2025, a Finnish truth and reconciliation commission called on Finland to rectify injustices committed against the Sami.
jll-po/rlp

Haïti

'Devastated' AI scandal author Orelien returns to Quebec

BY JéRéMY TORDJMAN AND MATHIEU GORSE IN MONTRéAL

  • "I advised him to unplug, to disconnect from all this nauseating attention, this racist hatred that has nothing to do with the controversy," he told AFP, adding that his friend had been condemned in a "summary" way based solely on AI. Rodney Saint-Eloi, another Haitian writer from Montreal, also defended Orelien, telling AFP that "a young man is being publicly assassinated, that's what hurts me the most." 
  • Top-selling author Thelyson Orelien is "devastated" by the scandal over his alleged use of AI to write his debut novel and has returned home to Montreal, friends and fellow writers say.
  • "I advised him to unplug, to disconnect from all this nauseating attention, this racist hatred that has nothing to do with the controversy," he told AFP, adding that his friend had been condemned in a "summary" way based solely on AI. Rodney Saint-Eloi, another Haitian writer from Montreal, also defended Orelien, telling AFP that "a young man is being publicly assassinated, that's what hurts me the most." 
Top-selling author Thelyson Orelien is "devastated" by the scandal over his alleged use of AI to write his debut novel and has returned home to Montreal, friends and fellow writers say.
Orelien was the toast of the French-language literary world earlier this month, with his migration-themed story "It Was Either That or Die" selling fast and picking up prize nominations and translation deals.
But following allegations started by an anonymous X account, the 38-year-old Haitian-Canadian stands accused of using artificial intelligence to write his novel based on analysis of excerpts by AI-detection websites such as Pangram. 
He has denied the claims and believes the attacks on his work are racially motivated. But he has been dropped from France's top literary prize and had his promotional tours suspended. 
James Noel, a Haitian poet and novelist who has known Orelien for 20 years, said he spoke with him at the height of the controversy and found him "devastated". 
"I advised him to unplug, to disconnect from all this nauseating attention, this racist hatred that has nothing to do with the controversy," he told AFP, adding that his friend had been condemned in a "summary" way based solely on AI.
Rodney Saint-Eloi, another Haitian writer from Montreal, also defended Orelien, telling AFP that "a young man is being publicly assassinated, that's what hurts me the most." 
His sudden rise had made him "an easily disposable product," he added.

'Gentle'

The allegations against Orelien have captivated France over the last week, focusing attention on whether AI use is acceptable for novelists and leading to questions about the reliability of apps that claim to be able to detect text written by ChatGPT or Claude. 
Pangram is considered one of the most reliable and testing by AFP on an excerpt of "It Was Either That or Die" indicated a 100-percent probability that Orelien had used AI to produce it. 
AFP ran excerpts through other AI detection tools and came up with a variety of results -- from it being "very likely" to have been written by a human to "100 percent" AI generated.
Orelien has promised to produce proof that he wrote the book himself and to speak out in detail "once things have calmed down".
But the suspicions about him were further fed when evidence emerged of plagiarism in a newspaper column and a short story he wrote before the publication of his novel. 
He is widely described as publicity-shy and reserved, making him ill-equipped to deal with the intense media spotlight cast on him over a story that has generated headlines around the world.
"He really speaks very little, he's very withdrawn, very shy, off in his corner... he's a very solitary person," Saint-Eloi told AFP.
Noël described him as "very gentle".
"When I met him, I could see a real author's style in him and I've always sensed in him an obsession with becoming a writer and a thirst for reading," he told AFP. "He's someone who devours books, who needs to talk about them." 

Exile

Orelien fled his native Haiti following a 2010 earthquake that struck the Caribbean island, already ravaged by poverty and unrest.
"I arrived like so many others: a suitcase full of dreams and fears," he wrote in June 2025 in one of his columns for the newspaper La Presse. 
He became a self-proclaimed "bookworm", reading Albert Camus, Toni Morrison, and Romain Gary, as well as fellow Haitian writers such as Jacques Roumain and James Noel.
His Facebook account, which is still accessible -- unlike his personal website -- reveals as much his love for adopted home as his native land. 
"Among Quebecers there is a rare way of helping: discreet, sincere, without fanfare," he wrote in October 2025.
In another post, he expressed his wish for "an independent Quebec, a rebuilt Haiti".
jt-mg/adp/fg

France

Energy costs spark inflation surge across Europe

BY SAM REEVES

  • Diesel prices in particular have hit record highs in Germany, France, Italy and several other eurozone countries in recent weeks, a result of the Middle East war that has slowed shipments of both crude oil and refined fuels from the Gulf.
  • Inflation accelerated more than expected in Germany, France and Italy in September as energy costs soared because of the Middle East war, official data showed Wednesday, boosting expectations for further eurozone interest rate hikes.
  • Diesel prices in particular have hit record highs in Germany, France, Italy and several other eurozone countries in recent weeks, a result of the Middle East war that has slowed shipments of both crude oil and refined fuels from the Gulf.
Inflation accelerated more than expected in Germany, France and Italy in September as energy costs soared because of the Middle East war, official data showed Wednesday, boosting expectations for further eurozone interest rate hikes.
The annual rate hit 3.3 percent in Germany, Europe's biggest economy, the fastest pace since December 2023, according to preliminary data from the statistics agency Destatis.
In France consumer prices rose three percent in the month compared to a year earlier, the highest since February 2024 and a sharp increase from 2.4 percent in August, statistics office Insee said.
In Italy inflation jumped to 4.2 percent, nearly a full percentage point above the 3.3 percent recorded in August, the Istat agency reported.
The price hikes are well above the European Central Bank's inflation target of two percent, raising the likelihood it will raise interest rates further.
Diesel prices in particular have hit record highs in Germany, France, Italy and several other eurozone countries in recent weeks, a result of the Middle East war that has slowed shipments of both crude oil and refined fuels from the Gulf.
That has raised expectations among analysts that the ECB will tighten monetary policy further in the coming months to rein in inflation, potentially dampening the eurozone's economic growth.
The central bank raised its benchmark rate to 2.5 percent earlier this month.
Inflation data for the full eurozone will be released on Friday. 
 

Inflation 'feeding through'

 
Jack Allen-Reynolds, an economist at Capital Economics, said the inflation readings "suggest that the indirect effects of higher energy costs are beginning to feed through" to the wider economy.
But he added that "this is unlikely to tip the balance for the ECB" and he expects policymakers to keep rates steady at their next meeting in October, before hiking again in December.
His view was shared by other analysts who said the central bank would wait until December, when it also releases updated economic forecasts.
Some analysts also noted that core inflation in Germany, which excludes volatile food and energy costs, was steady at 2.4 percent in September. 
"This should ease the immediate pressure on the ECB to implement further monetary tightening at its next meeting," said Dirk Schumacher, chief economist at the German public lender KfW.
Still, Rory Fennessy of Oxford Economics said the latest inflation readings could shift the debate at the ECB.
"The fact that inflation has surprised to the upside in September will only strengthen the case among the hawks in the [ECB governing council] for a more aggressive pace of tightening," he said.
Analysts at ING meanwhile said the French figures "suggest that inflation is likely to remain above three percent for the rest of 2026 before gradually declining in 2027".
That will weigh on household purchasing power "at a time when consumption is weakening and rising interest rates are exacerbating France's fiscal difficulties" they said.
Consumer spending fell 0.5 percent in France in August, Insee also reported Wednesday, and the country's public debt stood at 119 percent of GDP in the second quarter -- nearly double the eurozone limit of 60 percent.
bur-js-sr/fz/js
 
 

politics

Northern Ireland police probe blockade of disputed parade

  • "A large scale criminal investigation is underway regarding unlawful protest on the Garvaghy Road," Chief Constable Jon Boutcher said in a statement.
  • Northern Ireland's police chief said Wednesday a criminal probe was underway into protests blocking a pro-British Protestant parade through a mainly Catholic area, as the standoff dragged into a fourth day despite ongoing talks.
  • "A large scale criminal investigation is underway regarding unlawful protest on the Garvaghy Road," Chief Constable Jon Boutcher said in a statement.
Northern Ireland's police chief said Wednesday a criminal probe was underway into protests blocking a pro-British Protestant parade through a mainly Catholic area, as the standoff dragged into a fourth day despite ongoing talks.
"A large scale criminal investigation is underway regarding unlawful protest on the Garvaghy Road," Chief Constable Jon Boutcher said in a statement.
Thousands occupied the Garvaghy Road in Portadown, southwest of Belfast, on Sunday to prevent 35 members of the Protestant Orange Order from marching through the mainly Catholic neighbourhood.
The controversial procession had been authorised for the first time in almost three decades by the Parades Commission, the independent body that regulates contentious marches in Northern Ireland, and also won the backing of the courts.
Pro-UK unionist politicians and the Orange Order have called for Northern Ireland First Minister Michelle O'Neill, Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald, and other Sinn Fein ministers to be prosecuted over their participation in the blockade.
O'Neill told reporters in Dublin Tuesday that she did not expect to be arrested.
According to residents, the parade's authorisation was based on faulty police intelligence that the march would not meet any resistance.
 
Boutcher said police were seeking to implement the decision peacefully while protecting public safety.
The Orange Order and Garvaghy Road residents continued separate talks Wednesday with Britain's Northern Ireland minister Chris Bryant at Hillsborough Castle, west of Belfast, after earlier rounds failed to produce a breakthrough.
On Tuesday the residents' spokesperson Breandan Mac Cionnaith described the prospect of mediation as "dead in the water", having said Monday that residents would be open to a process involving an international mediator.
A residents' appeal challenging the court ruling that upheld the commission's decision is scheduled for Friday in Belfast.
The dispute triggered deadly unrest in the 1990s.
The procession last went ahead along Garvaghy Road in 1997, amid large-scale protests in Catholic areas of the UK region.
It was barred the following year, when a peace accord largely ended three decades of conflict over British rule.
pmu/jkb/rlp

US

'Do something,' begs Iranian woman after death sentence over protests

BY STUART WILLIAMS

  • I am worried for the others whose sentences have been upheld," she said in the call, an audio recording of which was shared by Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) and US-based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI).
  • An Iranian woman sentenced to death over protests earlier this year has begged the international community to save her life and others facing the death penalty, according to an audio message from prison shared by rights groups on Wednesday.
  • I am worried for the others whose sentences have been upheld," she said in the call, an audio recording of which was shared by Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) and US-based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI).
An Iranian woman sentenced to death over protests earlier this year has begged the international community to save her life and others facing the death penalty, according to an audio message from prison shared by rights groups on Wednesday.
The plea by Mahboubeh Shahbani, 33, from her jail in the eastern city of Mashhad comes as the authorities executed two more men on charges linked to the mass January protests.
Rights groups accuse Iran of ramping up executions of high-profile prisoners in a bid to intimidate the population and ensure there is no repeat of the protests, which preceded the US-Israeli war against the Islamic republic that erupted on February 28.
"The sentence handed down to me shows that many others are in danger of execution," Shahbani said in a telephone call from the phone for prisoners in Mashhad's Vakilabad prison after her lawyer informed her of the death sentence on September 26.
"I am not worried about myself. I am worried for the others whose sentences have been upheld," she said in the call, an audio recording of which was shared by Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) and US-based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI).
It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the message. It was punctuated by an automatic voice saying the caller was a prisoner, which is usual practice for calls from Iranian prisons. 
"I call on everyone -- the public, the UN, human rights organisations. Not just for me but for all the others whose sentences have been upheld and who have spent months sleeping in fear and stress at night.
"I call on them to do something," she said.

'I beg everyone'

According to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), Shahbani was convicted of carrying out actions "to strengthen Israel, the US, and individuals affiliated with opposition groups" in the protests.
But IHR said she had merely used her motorcycle to transport injured protesters. It added she had been moved to solitary confinement after making the call from prison.
"Conditions are extremely bad for the prisoners given the pressures they exert on us," Shahbani said in the message. "I beg everyone to do whatever is in their power."
Iran's judiciary earlier announced the hanging in Mashhad of Ali Hemmati and Majid Nik-Andish on charges linked to the deaths of four members of the security forces in the protests.
According to IHR, since wartime executions resumed in March, 31 people, all men, have been hanged in connection with the January protests and two in connection with the 2022 protests. Dozens more are at risk of execution.
The CHRI said it believed a total of nine women across Iran are at risk of execution on political and security charges.
President Donald Trump in April re-posted a claim on X by a pro-Israel youth activist in the United States that eight women faced death by hanging, with the US leader urging them to be spared. 
Shahbani was one of the women who featured in the post, although some others have since been freed or no longer face execution.
sjw/ekf/ris

corruption

Indonesia razes poolside prison 'villas' where whisky, TVs seized

  • Officers raided the prison and emptied several "villas" of furniture, bottles of alcohol and at least one big-screen TV, before taking an excavator to 10 of the units and smashing them to the ground.
  • Indonesian authorities razed luxury prison "villas" outside Jakarta on Wednesday where whisky and a big-screen TV were seized from a complex, complete with a pool and a gym, in which inmates were allegedly paying to live.
  • Officers raided the prison and emptied several "villas" of furniture, bottles of alcohol and at least one big-screen TV, before taking an excavator to 10 of the units and smashing them to the ground.
Indonesian authorities razed luxury prison "villas" outside Jakarta on Wednesday where whisky and a big-screen TV were seized from a complex, complete with a pool and a gym, in which inmates were allegedly paying to live.
Officers raided the prison and emptied several "villas" of furniture, bottles of alcohol and at least one big-screen TV, before taking an excavator to 10 of the units and smashing them to the ground.
The Indonesian ombudsman's office said last week an inspection uncovered a cluster of indulgently furnished apartments inhabited by inmates on the grounds of the Cibinong men's prison in Bogor, south of the capital.
The inmates allegedly paid rent for the accommodation complete with couches, large beds, TVs, fridges and even dining tables.
Photos released by the ombudsman's office after an unannounced visit showed bottles of beer, whisky and other alcohol in a fridge door of one of the units described by the team as "villas".
An unlocked access gate linked the yard around the units to a bamboo forest, making it possible for the prisoners to enter and exit at will. 
There was a "luxury car parking area" on the grounds, according to ombudsman official Syafrida Rachmawati Rasahan, as well as a swimming pool and a gym.
A golf simulator was also being built for the residents.
"We found (the premises) occupied by inmates," Syafrida told a news conference last Thursday.
"So we strongly suspect that in Cibinong correctional facility, there are special facilities for some inmates." 

'Illegal'

The prison houses more than 1,800 inmates, many times its capacity. They are detained for a mix of crimes, including violent and white-collar offences such as corruption.
Money for the structures were "not sourced from the state budget... and there is no permit," the prison ministry's inspector general Rudi Setiawan told reporters.
"Some (inmates) had inhabited these buildings... We have received information on who were there, and we will follow up on who allowed it to happen."
Prison staff emptied the housing units of couches, fridges, coffee tables, beds and other comforts on Wednesday, stashing them to one side before razing 10 structures described by officials as "illegal".
The prisons ministry said it would report the findings of a preliminary investigation to parliament next week.
The inspector general said 52 inmates had been questioned so far.
The head of the prison and four other senior officials have been suspended.
Authorities have not divulged which inmates had inhabited the luxury accommodation, nor said what will happen to them now.
mrc-mlr/pbt

fraud

Turkey freezes ex-minister's assets as fund crisis grows

  • A day later, regulators moved to address the crisis by placing into liquidation seven companies that hold 131 investment funds, whose assets are reportedly worth around $17 billion, with the Capital Markets Board (SPK) saying more than 455,000 individual investors were affected.  hmw-dla/js    
  • Turkish prosecutors have moved to freeze the assets of a top governing party official and former minister who resigned at the weekend over allegations she profited from an investment fund crisis. 
  • A day later, regulators moved to address the crisis by placing into liquidation seven companies that hold 131 investment funds, whose assets are reportedly worth around $17 billion, with the Capital Markets Board (SPK) saying more than 455,000 individual investors were affected.  hmw-dla/js    
Turkish prosecutors have moved to freeze the assets of a top governing party official and former minister who resigned at the weekend over allegations she profited from an investment fund crisis. 
In a brief statement late Tuesday, prosecutors said they had sent "a letter concerning the freezing of all assets" of Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya and her husband, Ilyas Kaya, to "all the relevant institutions".
Turkey has been wrestling with the fallout from an investment fund scandal that erupted this month with the collapse of what officials have called a "Ponzi-like" scheme. 
Following allegations by Turkey's main opposition Yeni Parti that she and her husband made millions trading in such shares, Kaya, the deputy head of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's AKP party, said late Saturday she was resigning. 
While admitting nothing, Kaya, who was Turkey's family minister from 2016 to 2018, said she was taking "political responsibility" to ensure that any investigation could be conducted "independently, impartially". 
At a news conference earlier Saturday, a Yeni spokesman, Gokhan Gunaydin, said the party was seeking clarification over claims that Kaya invested 63 million lira ($1.3 million) in shares in April and sold them in September, earning a profit of around 1.3 billion lira ($26.5 million).
He also said her husband had allegedly invested 100 million lira and earned back 826 million lira, collectively netting the pair an alleged profit of nearly 2.2 billion lira ($45 million).
Gunaydin said it was "clear" Kaya had received insider information and pledged that the party would unveil more names this week. 
 

'Robbery of the century'

 
The scandal is expected to dominate the coming agenda in parliament, which formally reopens on Thursday following the summer recess. 
"This name is the tip of the iceberg," Yeni leader Ozgur Ozel told a party meeting on Wednesday, describing the scandal as "the robbery of the century". 
On Tuesday, Erdogan held a three-hour meeting with economic aides over the fund crisis, after earlier defending his party's record. 
"The AK Party is a clean party, just as its name suggests; it is a party true to its name. No one can tarnish this party's purity or stain that cleanliness," he told party cadres. 
"Without looking at their own pitch-black records, they even try to give us lessons in morality and political ethics. 'Get lost', I tell them," he said of his political opponents. 
The crisis erupted in mid-September when several funds said they were unable to satisfy investor redemption demands, sending Istanbul's main stock exchange tumbling. 
A day later, regulators moved to address the crisis by placing into liquidation seven companies that hold 131 investment funds, whose assets are reportedly worth around $17 billion, with the Capital Markets Board (SPK) saying more than 455,000 individual investors were affected. 
hmw-dla/js