WASHINGTON: The Latest on the release of an American college student from a North Korean prison
An American college student who was released from a North Korean prison has been taken to an Ohio hospital for treatment.
Otto Warmbier (WORM’-bir), whose parents say is in a coma, arrived at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center late Tuesday night.
Warmbier was serving a 15-year prison term with hard labor in North Korea for alleged anti-state acts.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says the State Department secured the 22-year-old’s release at President Donald Trump’s direction. A plane carrying Warmbier arrived at a Cincinnati airport around 10:20 p.m. Tuesday.
Warmbier was sentenced in March 2016 after a televised tearful public confession to trying to steal a propaganda banner.
An American college student has arrived in Ohio after being released by North Korea, where he was serving a 15-year prison term with hard labor for alleged anti-state acts.
A plane carrying Otto Warmbier (WORM’-bir) arrived around 10:20 p.m. Tuesday at an airport in Cincinnati where he was to be taken to a hospital. His parents say he has been in a coma and was medically evacuated. The 22-year-old student from suburban Cincinnati was supposed to graduate from the University of Virginia in May.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced Warmbier’s release Tuesday and said he’d be reunited with his family.
Tillerson says the State Department secured Warmbier’s release at President Donald Trump’s direction.
He was sentenced in March 2016 after a televised tearful public confession to trying to steal a propaganda banner.
The White House says securing the release of an American college student from a North Korean prison “was a big priority” for President Donald Trump.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Tuesday the Republican president worked “very hard and very closely” with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
She says it’s an “extremely sad” situation that student Otto Warmbier (WORM’-bir) is in a coma. She says Trump’s “thoughts and prayers” are with the 22-year-old college student’s family.
Warmbier had been serving a 15-year prison term. He was freed Tuesday. His parents say he’s on a Medivac flight on his way home.
Warmbier is from the Cincinnati suburb Wyoming. Resident Amy Mayer says news of his release has sent waves of shock and joy through the neighborhood.
The State Department says former NBA star Dennis Rodman, who is visiting North Korea, had nothing to do with the release of a detained American college student.
Otto Warmbier (WORM’-bir), who had been serving a 15-year prison term, was freed and evacuated from North Korea on Tuesday, as Rodman arrived in the reclusive country.
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert has declined to provide details on the circumstance of Warmbier’s release or comment on his health condition. His parents say he’s in a coma.
But Nauert is firm in stating “Dennis Rodman had nothing to do with the release of Mr. Warmbier.”
She tells reporters, “we are grateful and thankful” for Warmbier’s release, but says it is “too soon” to talk about dialogue between the US and North Korea.
The White House says a US envoy met with North Korean foreign ministry representatives in Norway last month as part of efforts to win freedom for Americans held by Pyongyang.
Such direct consultations between the two governments are rare.
North Korea on Tuesday freed one of the detainees, Otto Warmbier. His family says he is in a coma.
A White House official says the May meeting in Oslo was attended by Joseph Yun, the US envoy to North Korea. At the meeting, North Korea agreed that Swedish diplomats could visit all four American detainees.
Yun then met last week with the North Korean ambassador at the UN in New York. And Yun was dispatched to North Korea and visited Warmbier with two doctors on Monday, and demanded his release. He was evacuated on Tuesday.
-AP reporter Ken Thomas.
The president of an American university where a student attended before being imprisoned by North Korea says the school is “deeply concerned and saddened” to learn that he is in a coma.
Otto Warmbier (WORM’-bir) was serving a 15-year prison term with hard labor for alleged anti-state acts. Warmbier’s parents said in a statement Tuesday that he had been freed by the Communist state but had to be medically evacuated because he was in a coma.
Warmbier was supposed to graduate from the University of Virginia in May.
University President Teresa Sullivan said in a statement that the school is relieved to hear Warmbier was released, but is concerned about his condition.
Sullivan says the university community has Warmbier’s family in its thoughts and prayers as he returns home.
Two Ohio senators are denouncing North Korea after a resident of their state was said to be in a coma after being released from a prison in that country.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced Tuesday the release of Otto Warmbier (WORM’-bir), a University of Virginia student.
Warmbier was serving a 15-year prison term with hard labor for alleged anti-state acts. Warmbier’s family said in a statement that he is in a coma and on his way home.
Republican Sen. Rob Portman says North Korea should be “universally condemned for its abhorrent behavior.” Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Cleveland said the country’s “despicable actions ... must be condemned.”
The parents of the 22-year old American college student freed by North Korea say he is in a coma.
They say that Otto Warmbier is on a Medivac flight on his way home. He had been serving a 15-year prison term with hard labor for alleged anti-state acts.
Fred and Cindy Warmbier said in a statement to The Associated Press that they have been told their son has been in a coma since March 2016, and they had learned of this only one week ago.
They said: “We want the world to know how we and our son have been brutalized and terrorized by the pariah regime” in North Korea.
They also said they are grateful he “will finally be with people who love him.”
The State Department announced Warmbier’s release earlier Tuesday but gave no details on his condition.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says that North Korea has released Otto Warmbier, an American serving a 15-year prison term with hard labor for alleged anti-state acts.
Tillerson says that Warmbier is on his way back to the US to be re-united with his family. He says in a statement that the State Department secured Warmbier’s release at the direction of President Donald Trump. Tillerson says the State Department continues discussing three other detained Americans with North Korea.
The announcement comes as former NBA player Dennis Rodman is paying a return visit to North Korea.
Warmbier is a University of Virginia student from suburban Cincinnati. He was sentenced in March after a televised tearful public confession to trying to steal a propaganda banner.
Student released by North Korea now at hospital
Student released by North Korea now at hospital
Zelensky tells US House speaker: quick passage of military aid is vital
- Republican Speaker Mike Johnson has held up a bill for months that would supply $60 billion in military and financial aid for Ukraine
- “We recognize that there are differing views in the House of Representatives on how to proceed, but the key is to keep the issue of aid to Ukraine as a unifying factor,” Zelensky said
KYIV: President Volodymyr Zelensky told the speaker of the US House of Representatives during a phone call on Thursday that it was vital that Congress passes a new military aid package for Kyiv rapidly.
Republican Speaker Mike Johnson has held up a bill for months that would supply $60 billion in military and financial aid for Ukraine.
“Quick passage of US aid to Ukraine by Congress is vital. We recognize that there are differing views in the House of Representatives on how to proceed, but the key is to keep the issue of aid to Ukraine as a unifying factor,” Zelensky said on X.
Ukrainian troops are on the back foot on the battlefield, facing shortages of artillery supplies with the US assistance held up in Congress and the European Union failing to deliver on time munitions that it had promised earlier.
In a statement, Zelensky said he briefed Johnson about the situation on the battlefield and also spoke about “the dramatic increase in Russia’s air terror.”
Last Friday, Russia conducted its largest air strike on Ukraine’s energy system since invading in February 2022, damaging power units at a major dam and causing blackouts for more than a million people.
Moscow has described its recent attacks as part of a series of “revenge” strikes in response to Ukrainian attacks on Russian regions. Russia has increased its use of harder-to-stop ballistic missiles. It denies targeting civilians, though many have been killed in its strikes.
Poland raids Russian spy network targeting EU
- The services said their operations were linked to charges filed earlier this year against a Polish citizen suspected of spying for Russia
- The Internal Security Agency is conducting activities as part of an investigation into espionage activities for Russia directed against European Union countries and institutions
WARSAW: Polish security services said Thursday they had raided a Russian spy network in cooperation with Czech intelligence, which a day earlier had busted a major Russian propaganda network.
The services said their operations were linked to charges filed earlier this year against a Polish citizen suspected of spying for Russia.
“The Internal Security Agency is conducting activities as part of an investigation into espionage activities for Russia directed against European Union countries and institutions,” agency spokesman Jacek Dobrzynski said on social media.
He added in a statement that the agency had carried out raids in the capital Warsaw and the southern city of Tychy and interrogations in connection with the case.
He said the spy network’s “goal was to implement the Kremlin’s foreign policy objectives, including weakening Poland’s position on the world stage, discrediting Ukraine as well as the image of EU organs.”
“The operations carried out are the result of the agency’s international cooperation with a number of European services, coordinated in particular with Czech partners.”
Dobrzynski added that the security agency’s operations began from an investigation that in January resulted in charges against a Polish citizen suspected of Russian espionage.
“The man, embedded in Polish and EU parliament circles, carried out tasks commissioned and financed by colleagues from Russian intelligence,” he said in the statement.
These tasks notably included “propaganda activity, disinformation as well as political provocation. Their objective was to build Russian spheres of influence in Europe.”
The security agency has not revealed the man’s identity.
The Czech Republic announced on Wednesday that it had busted a Moscow-financed network that spread Russian propaganda and wielded influence across Europe, including in the European Parliament.
Prague said the group used the Prague-based Voice of Europe news site to spread information seeking to discourage the European Union from sending aid to Ukraine, which has been battling a Russian invasion since February 2022.
The Czech government has added the Voice of Europe and two pro-Kremlin Ukrainian politicians — Viktor Medvedchuk and Artem Marchevsky — to its sanctions list in relation to the network’s activities.
The Denik N daily said the news site had published statements by politicians demanding the EU halt aid to Ukraine.
Some European politicians cooperating with the news site were paid from Russian funds that in some cases also covered their 2024 EU election campaign, the daily adds.
The payments targeted politicians from Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands and Poland, Denik N said, citing a Czech foreign ministry source.
Asked about the network, a spokeswoman for the German interior ministry said “this case is another example of Russia’s extensive and wide-ranging influence activities.”
“The Federal Republic of Germany also remains an important target of Russian influence operations,” she told AFP.
“The German security authorities will continue to use all available means and in cooperation with their foreign partners to investigate such influence operations and take measures to prevent them.”
Moscow attack death toll rises to 143: authorities
- By Wednesday afternoon, 80 people injured in the attack, including six children, remained in hospital
- The previous day that many people in shock had initially not returned to the hospital for treatment
MOSCOW: The death toll from the attack on a Moscow concert hall claimed by Islamic extremists rose on Wednesday to 143, Russian authorities said.
Authorities listed the names of the dead on the Russian ministry for civil defense and emergency situations five days after last Friday’s attack, the deadliest claimed to date by Daesh on European soil and the worst in Russia in two decades.
By Wednesday afternoon, 80 people injured in the attack, including six children, remained in hospital, TASS news agency quoted Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko as saying.
An anonymous medical source told TASS 205 people had received outpatient care.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova told reporters the previous day that many people in shock had initially not returned to the hospital for treatment.
On Friday, gunmen opened fire at the Crocus City concert hall near Moscow, also setting fire to the venue.
Four attack suspects — all from Tajikistan according to Russian state media — are under arrest along with several suspected accomplices.
A Moscow court has ordered the men be held in pre-trial detention until May 22 — a date likely to be extended until a full trial.
Russia said Saturday it had arrested 11 people in connection with the attack. There has been no information on the other seven.
The attack was swiftly claimed by Daesh although Moscow has repeated its initial line of a link to Ukraine.
Kyiv rejects any involvement.
Russia has for some years been a target of Daesh owing to its role in suppressing unrest in regions with a substantial Muslim majority as well as its support for the regime in Syria’s civil war.
On Monday, three days after the attack, President Vladimir Putin admitted for the first time that the presumed gunmen were radical Islamists but continued to insist on a link to Ukraine, saying the perpetrators were headed there when they were caught some 150 kilometers (93 miles) from the border.
French parliament condemns 1961 Paris massacre of Algerians
- In recent years France has made a series of efforts to come to terms with its colonial past in Algeria
- The text of the resolution, which is largely symbolic, stressed the crackdown took place “under the authority of police prefect Maurice Papon”
PARIS: The French parliament’s lower house on Thursday approved a resolution condemning as “bloody and murderous repression” the killing by Paris police of dozens of Algerians in a crackdown on a 1961 protest to support Algerian independence.
In recent years France has made a series of efforts to come to terms with its colonial past in Algeria.
Dozens of peaceful demonstrators died during a crackdown by Paris police on a protest by Algerians in 1961. The scale of the massacre was covered up for decades by French authorities before President Emmanuel Macron condemned it as “inexcusable” in 2021.
The text of the resolution, which is largely symbolic, stressed the crackdown took place “under the authority of police prefect Maurice Papon” and also called for the official commemoration of the massacre.
The bill, put forward by Greens lawmaker Sabrina Sebaihi and ruling Renaissance party MP Julie Delpech, was approved by 67 lawmakers, mainly representatives of the left and Macron’s party.
Eleven voted against, all members of the far-right National Rally party.
Sebaihi said the vote represented the “first step” toward the “recognition of this colonial crime, the recognition of this state crime.”
The term “state crime” however does not appear in the text of the resolution, which was jointly drafted by Macron’s party and the Elysee Palace. The subject remains highly sensitive both in France and Algeria.
The Paris police chief at the time, Papon, was in the 1980s revealed to have been a collaborator with the occupying Nazis in World War II and complicit in the deportation of Jews. He was convicted of crimes against humanity but later released.
On the 60th anniversary of the bloodshed in 2021, Macron acknowledged that several dozen protesters had been killed, “their bodies thrown into the River Seine.”
The precise number of victims has never been made clear and some activists fear several hundred could have been killed.
“Let us spare a thought here today for these victims and their families, who have been hit hard by the spiral of violence,” Dominique Faure, the minister for local and regional authorities, said on Thursday.
She noted that efforts had been made in the past to recognize the massacre.
In 2012, then president Francois Hollande paid “tribute to the victims” of a “bloody crackdown” on the men and women demonstrating for “the right to independence.”
The rally was called in the final year of France’s increasingly violent attempt to retain Algeria as a north African colony, and in the middle of a bombing campaign targeting mainland France by pro-independence militants.
However, Faure expressed reservations about establishing a special day to commemorate the massacre, pointing out that three dates already existed to “commemorate what happened during the Algerian war.”
“Much remains to be done to write this history, but in my opinion this is the only way to build a sincere and lasting reconciliation,” she said.
“I think it is important to let history do the work before considering a new day of commemoration specifically for the victims of October 17, 1961.”
Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune is set to travel to France for a state visit, scheduled for late September or early October, according to the Elysee.
However, National Rally lawmaker Frank Giletti criticized “excessive repentance” based on “lies.”
“By proposing this resolution, you are following in the footsteps of Emmanuel Macron, who has never stopped kneeling before the Algerian government, and who is working to mortify his own country through continuous repentance that has become unbearable,” he said.
France has made several attempts over the years to heal the wounds with Algeria, but it refuses to “apologize or repent” for the 132 years of often brutal rule that ended in 1962 after a devastating eight-year war.
French historians say half a million civilians and combatants died during the war for independence, 400,000 of them Algerian. The Algerian authorities say 1.5 million were killed.
France blocks fake Ukraine war recruitment website
- The site, which is now inaccessible, said 200,000 French people were invited to “enlist in Ukraine,” with immigrants given priority
- A link to the site — that resembled the French army’s genuine recruitment portal — had been posted on X, the French defense ministry said
PARIS: French authorities have uncovered a website containing a fake recruitment drive for French volunteers to join the war in Ukraine, the defense ministry said on Thursday.
The site has now been taken down by French services, a government source, who asked not to be named, told AFP without giving further details on the nature of the operation.
The site, which is now inaccessible, said 200,000 French people were invited to “enlist in Ukraine,” with immigrants given priority.
A link to the site — that resembled the French army’s genuine recruitment portal — had been posted on X, formerly Twitter, the French defense ministry said.
“The site is a fake government site,” the ministry said, also on X, “and has been reposted by malevolent accounts as part of a disinformation campaign.”
The ministry did not name any suspects in the website spoof, but a government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the site bore “the hallmarks of a Russian or pro-Russian effort as part of a disinformation campaign claiming that the French army is preparing to send troops to Ukraine.”
French President Emmanuel Macron angered the Russian leadership last month by hardening his tone on the conflict sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, refusing to rule out sending ground troops and insisting Europe had to do all that was needed for a Russian defeat.
Similar recent examples of disinformation posts included pictures of French army convoys wrongly presented as moving toward the Ukrainian border, the official said.
The fake website invited potential recruits to contact “unit commander Paul” for information about joining.
The defense ministry and government cyber units are investigating, ministry staff told AFP.
The French government has recently stepped up efforts to denounce and fight what it says are Russian disinformation and destabilization campaigns aimed at undermining French public support for Ukraine in its war against Russia.