BERLIN: Chancellor Olaf Scholz is aware of the case of a German national sentenced to death in Belarus and is concerned, a government spokesperson said on Friday.
Germany’s foreign ministry confirmed last week that a German national had been sentenced to death in Belarus. Belarusian human rights group Viasna identified him as Rico Krieger and said his charges related to terrorism and mercenary activity.
“Like the entire federal government, he (Scholz) is concerned about these events,” a German government spokesperson told a regular press conference when asked about the case.
Krieger has described himself as an emergency services worker.
Russia’s Tass news agency, citing footage on the Belarus-1 state TV channel, reported on Thursday that Krieger had asked Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko — an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin — to forgive him.
Tass quoted Krieger as saying Ukraine’s SBU security service instructed him to photograph military sites in Belarus and to plant a backpack on train tracks southeast of the capital Minsk that later exploded. No one was hurt.
“I truly hope that President Lukashenko will forgive and pardon me,” Krieger said.
The local German consulate is in contact with the detainee, a spokesperson for the foreign office in Berlin said.
She criticized the practice of showing detainees in videos, adding that this violated the subject’s dignity and that Germany was appealing to Belarus to stop this practice.
The spokesperson also reiterated Berlin’s opposition to the death penalty in all cases.
Scholz concerned about death sentence for German national in Belarus
https://arab.news/nj3kz
Scholz concerned about death sentence for German national in Belarus
- Belarusian human rights group Viasna identified him as Rico Krieger and said his charges related to terrorism
- “Like the entire federal government, he (Scholz) is concerned about these events,” a German government spokesperson said
India plans AI ‘data city’ on staggering scale
- ‘The data city is going to come in one ecosystem ... with a 100 kilometer radius’
NEW DELHI: As India races to narrow the artificial intelligence gap with the United States and China, it is planning a vast new “data city” to power digital growth on a staggering scale, the man spearheading the project says.
“The AI revolution is here, no second thoughts about it,” said Nara Lokesh, information technology minister for Andhra Pradesh state, which is positioning the city of Visakhapatnam as a cornerstone of India’s AI push.
“And as a nation ... we have taken a stand that we’ve got to embrace it,” he said ahead of an international AI summit next week in New Delhi.
Lokesh boasts the state has secured investment agreements of $175 billion involving 760 projects, including a $15 billion investment by Google for its largest AI infrastructure hub outside the United States.
And a joint venture between India’s Reliance Industries, Canada’s Brookfield and US firm Digital Realty is investing $11 billion to develop an AI data center in the same city.
Visakhapatnam — home to around two million people and popularly known as “Vizag” — is better known for its cricket ground that hosts international matches than cutting-edge technology.
But the southeastern port city is now being pitched as a landing point for submarine internet cables linking India to Singapore.
“The data city is going to come in one ecosystem ... with a 100 kilometer radius,” Lokesh said. For comparison, Taiwan is roughly 100 kilometers wide.
Lokesh said the plan goes far beyond data connectivity, adding that his state had “received close to 25 percent of all foreign direct investments” to India in 2025.
“It’s not just about the data centers,” he explained while outlining a sweeping vision of change, with Andhra Pradesh offering land at one US cent per acre for major investors.
