MOSCOW: Belarus, a close Russian ally, pardoned 31 Ukrainian citizens, state TV said on Saturday, as part of an agreement between President Alexander Lukashenko and US counterpart Donald Trump.
Trump has pushed Belarus to free political prisoners in contacts with Lukashenko, who has ruled since 1994 and stamped out free media and political opposition.
In exchange, Washington has partly lifted sanctions on Belarus’s state carrier Belavia, allowing it to service and buy parts for its fleet, which includes Boeing aircraft.
“The president has pardoned 31 Ukrainian citizens who committed criminal offenses on the territory of our country,” Lukashenko’s spokeswoman Natalia Eismont told state TV.
The pardon, which was requested by Ukraine, was a result of “the agreements reached between US President Donald Trump and President of the Republic of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko,” she said.
The move was aimed at “creating conditions for the settlement of the armed conflict in the neighboring state,” the spokeswoman added, referring to the war in Ukraine.
The Ukrainians, who were not identified, are being handed over to Kyiv “right now,” according to Eismont.
Belarus has typically charged people who oppose or criticize the government with “extremism,” meting out years-long prison sentences. It was not immediately clear what the freed Ukrainians had been charged with.
Earlier, Lukashenko had freed dozens of political prisoners, including prominent dissidents, journalists and clerics.
There were more than 1,000 political prisoners still remaining in Belarusian prisons, according to rights groups.
Belarus pardons 31 Ukrainians under Lukashenko-Trump pact
https://arab.news/85mp6
Belarus pardons 31 Ukrainians under Lukashenko-Trump pact
- Trump has pushed Belarus to free political prisoners in contacts with Lukashenko, who has ruled since 1994 and stamped out free media and political opposition
Volcanic eruptions may have brought Black Death to Europe, say new study
- Study says volcanic eruptions in 1345 caused temperatures to drop, leading to crop failure and causing famine
- This led Italy to have ships bring grain from central Asia, where the bubonic plague is thought to have first emerged
- The plague killed tens of millions of people and wiped out up to 60 percent of the population in parts of Europe
PARIS: Previously unknown volcanic eruptions may have kicked off an unlikely series of events that brought the Black Death — the most devastating pandemic in human history — to the shores of medieval Europe, new research has revealed.
The outbreak of bubonic plague known as the Black Death killed tens of millions and wiped out up to 60 percent of the population in parts of Europe during the mid-14th century.
How it came to Europe — and why it spread so quickly on such a massive scale — have long been debated by historians and scientists.
Now two researchers studying tree rings have suggested that a volcanic eruption may have been the first domino to fall.
By analizing the tree rings from the Pyrenees mountain range in Spain, the pair established that southern Europe had unusually cold and wet summers from 1345 to 1347.
Comparing climate data with written accounts from the time, the researchers demonstrated that temperatures likely dropped because there was less sunlight following one or more volcanic eruptions in 1345.
The change in climate ruined harvests, leading to failed crops and the beginnings of famine.
Fortunately — or so it seemed — “powerful Italian city states had established long-distance trade routes across the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, allowing them to activate a highly efficient system to prevent starvation,” said Martin Bauch, a historian at Germany’s Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe.
“But ultimately, these would inadvertently lead to a far bigger catastrophe,” he said in a statement.
Deadly stowaways
The city states of Venice, Genoa and Pisa had ships bring grain from the Mongols of the Golden Horde in central Asia, which is where the plague is thought to have first emerged.
Previous research has suggested that these grain ships brought along unwelcome passengers: rats carrying fleas infected with Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes plague.
Between 25 and 50 million people are estimated to have died over the next six years.
While the story encompasses natural, demographic, economic and political events in the area, it was ultimately the previously unidentified volcanic eruption that paved the way for one of history’s greatest disasters, the researchers argued.
“Although the coincidence of factors that contributed to the Black Death seems rare, the probability of zoonotic diseases emerging under climate change and translating into pandemics is likely to increase in a globalized world,” study co-author Ulf Buentgen of Cambridge University in the UK said in a statement.
“This is especially relevant given our recent experiences with Covid-19.”
The study was published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment on Thursday.
