by tyler | May 17, 2023 | CNN, europe
Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has lost his appeal against a 2021 conviction for corruption and influence-peddling at the Paris court of appeals.
The court on Wednesday upheld his initial sentence of three years of prison, with Sarkozy being required to wear an electronic bracelet under house arrest for one year, and two years suspended.
“Nicolas Sarkozy is innocent,” his lawyer Jacqueline Laffont ttold CNN affiliate BFMTV on her way out of court. “The decision is astounding and unfair,” she added.
Laffont said Sarkozy “will go to the end of this judicial process,” and will file an appeal at the French supreme court, the last legal step before his sentence is executed.
Sarkozy was first sentenced in March 2021 for trying to illegally obtain information from a senior magistrate in 2014 about an ongoing investigation into his campaign finances.
The Paris prosecutor had then requested a three-year prison sentence, with two years suspended, for the former president and his co-defendants: his lawyer Thierry Herzog and former magistrate Gilbert Azibert.
The case dates back to 2013 when investigators looking into Sarkozy’s campaign finances bugged phones belonging to the former president and his lawyer Herzog.
They discovered that the two men promised senior magistrate Azibert a prestigious position in Monaco, in exchange for information about a then ongoing inquiry into claims that Sarkozy had accepted illegal payments from L’Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt for his successful 2007 presidential campaign.
Sarkozy, who served as president between 2012 and 2017, has been convicted twice in separate cases since leaving office, both of which he has appealed.
He will face an appeal hearing in November in the so-called “Bygmalion case,” in which he was sentenced to one year in prison in September 2021 for illegal campaign funding in his re-election bid of 2012.
He also faces a number of other investigations including one into allegations of illegal campaign funding from Libya. France’s financial crimes prosecutors said on May 11 that Sarkozy and 12 others should go on trial over allegations that millions of euros were sought from former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.
by tyler | May 15, 2023 | CNN, europe
Turkey’s fiercely contested presidential election appears likely to go to a second round after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan failed to secure 50% of votes cast to decisively extend his 20-year rule.
The high stakes election will ultimately decide the fate of a key NATO ally and regional power broker at a time when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has plunged much of the world into uncertainty.
The mood noticeably darkened at the headquarters of Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AK Party) in Istanbul on Sunday evening as his early lead slipped away.
With 97.95% of votes counted, state-run Anadolu news agency reported Erdogan had 49.34% of votes, compared to 44.99% for his main opponent, Kemal Kilicdaroglu – meaning neither could claim an outright win.
The third candidate, Sinan Ogan, received 5.28% of votes, according to Anadolu, raising the possibility he could be a kingmaker in a runoff. He tweeted that a second vote is “quite possible,” and that “Turkish nationalists and Ataturkists are in a key position for this election.”
Kilicdaroglu welcomed the prospect of a runoff vote and said his party would triumph.
“If our nation says second round, we gladly accept it. We will absolutely win this election in the second round. Everyone will see that,” he said, of the runoff, slated for May 28.
Sunday’s race poses the biggest challenge yet to Turkey’s strongman leader Erdogan, who faced economic headwinds and criticism that the impact of the devastating February 6 earthquake.
For the first time, Turkey’s factious opposition coalesced around a single candidate, Kilicdaroglu, who represents an election coalition of six opposition parties.
Before the vote, analysts predicted that Erdogan would not give up power without a struggle – and that even if Kilicdaroglu managed to pull ahead, it was possible the numbers could be contested.
The outcome of the make-or-break vote is also being closely watched internationally, especially in Moscow and Europe.
Turkey, a NATO member that has the alliance’s second-largest army, has strengthened its ties with Russia in recent years. In 2019, it even bought weapons from the country in defiance of the US.
More recently Erdogan has raised eyebrows in the West by continuing to maintain close ties with Russia as it continues its Ukraine onslaught, and has caused a headache for NATO’s expansion plans by stalling the membership of Finland and Sweden.
Earlier in the count, Erdogan was confident he’d secure enough votes to win the election.
“We believe we will finish this round with over 50% of the votes,” he told supporters at the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party headquarters in Ankara.
Kilicdaroglu earlier accused Erdogan’s AK Party of demanding recounts and delaying results in opposition strongholds, including in Ankara and Istanbul.
Speaking to CNN from a polling station in Istanbul’s Beyogly district, voter Korhan Futaci, 46, said: “My vote is for freedom. My vote is for the future of our kids. I’m hopeful.”
Yeliz Sahin, 46, whose brother and his son died in the earthquake, said: “It’s a historical moment that we’ve been waiting for for 20 years. This whole system needs to change.”
Meanwhile first-time voter Eren Uzmele, 19, said: “The future of the country is in our hands. It’s in the hands of the youth.”
Kilicdaroglu, a mild mannered 74-year-old former bureaucrat, has promised to fix Turkey’s faltering economy and restore democratic institutions compromised by a slide to authoritarianism during Erdogan’s tenure.
After casting his vote in Istanbul, Erdogan told reporters: “We pray to God for a better future for our country, our nation, and Turkish democracy.”
Meanwhile, after voting in Ankara, Kilicdaroglu said: “We all missed democracy, being together and embracing so much. Hopefully, from now on you will see spring will come to this country and it will always continue.”
Erdogan concluded his election campaign on Saturday night by praying at Hagia Sophia – a mosque and major historic site in Istanbul. In contrast, Kilicdaroglu visited the tomb of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey and staunch secularist.
Erdogan has been extolling the virtues of his long rule, campaigning on a platform of stability, independent foreign policy and continuing to bolster Turkey’s defense industry. Recently, he raised the wages of government workers by 45% and lowered the retirement age.
Over the last two years, Turkey’s currency has plummeted and prices have ballooned, prompting a cost of living crisis that has chipped away at Erdogan’s conservative, working class support base.
When a vicious earthquake on February 6 laid waste to large parts of southeast Turkey, Erdogan’s battled political aftershocks. His critics chastized him for a botched rescue effort and lax building controls that his ruling Justice and Development (AK) party presided over for two decades.
In the weeks after the quake, the government rounded up dozens of contractors, construction inspectors and project managers for violating building rules. Critics dismissed the move as scapegoating.
The government has also apologized for “mistakes” that were made in the immediate aftermath of the disaster.
The quake claimed over 51,000 lives in Turkey and neighboring Syrian. Thousands are still unaccounted for, with unmarked graves peppering the southeastern Turkish countryside.
On Thursday, Kilicdaroglu was boosted further by the late withdrawal from the race of a minor candidate, Muharrem Ince. Ince had low polling numbers but some opposition figures feared he would split the anti-Erdogan vote.
Turkey holds elections every five years. More than 1.8 million voters living abroad already cast their votes on April 17, Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah reported Wednesday, citing the country’s deputy foreign minister. Over 65 million Turks are eligible to vote.
The Supreme Election Council (YSK) chief Ahmet Yener said last month that at least 1 million voters in quake-stricken zones are expected not to vote this year amid displacement.
by tyler | May 15, 2023 | CNN, europe
Turkey will have a runoff election on May 28 after longtime leader President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was forced into a second round with only a narrow lead over his rival, Kemal Kilicdaroglu.
Neither candidate achieved the required 50% to take the presidency outright, after 100% of ballot boxes were opened, according to Turkey’s Supreme Election Council. All ballot boxes in the country were opened and the voter turnout rate is 88.92%, council chairman Ahmet Yener said.
But Kilicdaroglu now faces a tough battle to win the second round after Erdogan performed better than some opinion polls had suggested.
Official final results for Turkey’s election will be announced on Friday, the chairman of Turkey’s supreme election council Ahmet Yener said.
With the final count, the electorate will turn to a second round of voting that could extend Erdogan’s 20-year grip on power, or set the stage for a change in political direction.
Each candidate looked to re-energize voters once results began to surface in the early hours of Monday, in remarks that framed their contrastingly conservative and secular approaches to power.
Erdogan said he was “already ahead” of his “closest rival.”
“We are already ahead of our closest rival by 2.6 million votes. We expect this figure to increase with official results,” he commented.
He added that his camp does not know yet “if the presidential election is over in the first round,” but said, “We believe we will finish this round with over 50% of the votes.”
The leader of the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party received a litany of criticism in the months preceding the election, fielding accusations of negligence following the deadly February 6 earthquake, and overseeing an unorthodox fiscal policy that has plunged the nation into a cost of living crisis.
His decision to maintain close relations with Russia amid the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine has also caused friction with NATO allies, after he blocked requests for Finland and Sweden’s accession to the transatlantic military alliance. He campaigned on a manifesto championing the stability of his long rule, independent foreign policy and lowering the retirement age.
Kilicdaroglu, who represents an election coalition of six opposition parties, has promised an overhaul of Erdogan’s Islamist-leaning policies in favor of a political slogan based on secularism and fixing Turkey’s economic woes.
He welcomed the prospect of a runoff vote and said his party would triumph, after accusing Erdogan’s AK Party of demanding recounts and delaying results in opposition strongholds, including in Ankara and Istanbul.
“If our nation says second round, we gladly accept it. We will absolutely win this election in the second round. Everyone will see that,” Kilicdaroglu said, of the runoff.
Supporters for both candidates claimed momentum was on the side of their candidate, but the final results of the runoff could be determined by a key third component.
Ogan, the 55-year-old far-right candidate, has enough support from the first round to swing the vote in either Erdogan or Kilicdaroglu’s favor, depending on whom he chooses to endorse.
“There will be another difficult 15 days ahead,” Ogan said on Sunday at a press briefing in Ankara.
“We will do our best to make this process a good one for our nation and our country. At this time, we are not saying that we will support one party or the other.”
He told Reuters on Monday that if he signs an alliance with either wing, there will be no concessions on “sending refugees” to their homeland, as the country’s intake of asylum seekers from neighboring Syria has become central to the political debate in Turkey.
“We have certain red lines (to support any candidate), such as fighting against terrorism and sending refugees back. We have voiced these conditions before,” Ogan said in comments made before the runoff was announced.
“If we decide to be with an alliance, a protocol will be signed with them and we put in words that no concessions will be made regarding the (pro-Kurdish) Peoples’ Democratic Party.”
Ogan claimed the opposition has not gained the threshold votes due to lack of confidence from voters.
“I think (the elections head to runoff) because the opposition is not giving enough confidence to the voters. The opposition cannot reassure people that they can solve Turkey’s problems. I’d say the opposition is the one that was most affected by the (February 6) earthquakes,” he added.
by tyler | May 12, 2023 | CNN, europe
What’s eating Yevgeny Prigozhin?
In recent days, the boss of the Russian private military company Wagner seems to have gone into social-media meltdown, flooding his Telegram channel and other accounts with ever-more outrageous and provocative statements.
Among other things, Prigozhin revealed an apparently humiliating battlefield setback for Russia, fulminating this week that a Russian brigade had “fled” around eastern city of Bakhmut, threatening his troops with encirclement by the Ukrainian forces.
“The situation on the western flanks is developing according to the worst of the predicted scenarios,” Prigozhin complained in an audio message released Thursday. “Those territories that were liberated with the blood and lives of our comrades … are abandoned today almost without any fight by those who are supposed to hold our flanks.”
Earlier in the week, Prigozhin marred Russia’s May 9 Victory Day celebrations with public and profanity-laced criticisms of the country’s top military brass.
“Today they [Ukrainians] are tearing up the flanks in the Artemovsk [Bakhmut] direction, regrouping at Zaporizhzhia. And a counteroffensive is about to begin,” he said Tuesday. “Victory Day is the victory of our grandfathers. We haven’t earned that victory one millimeter.”
And then there was a more cryptic comment that raised eyebrows on social media. Continuing a longstanding public complaint that Russia’s uniformed military was starving his troops of shells, Prigozhin suggested that the higher-ups were dithering while Wagner fighters died.
“The shells are lying in warehouses, they are resting there,” he said. “Why are the shells lying in the warehouses? There are people who fight, and there are people who have learned once in their lives that there must be a reserve, and they save, save, save those reserves. … No one knows what for. Instead of spending a shell to kill the enemy, they kill our soldiers. And happy grandfather thinks this is okay.”
That begged the question: Whom, exactly, is Prigozhin referring to? After all, “grandfather in the bunker” is one of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny’s favorite monikers for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who inhabits an almost cartoonishly extreme security bubble.
So what, exactly, was Prigozhin driving at? Is he flirting with defenestration? Or is he simply at the end of his tether, after spending months on the front lines?
Prigozhin quickly backpedalled on his “grandfather” comment, recording a subsequent voice memo clarifying that he might be referring to the former Defense Minister Deputy Mikhail Mizintsev or Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov (or, more bizarrely, pro-war blogger Nataliya Khim).
“I spoke about a ‘grandpa’ in the context of the fact that we are not given shells which are kept in warehouses, and who can be a grandpa?” Prigozhin said in a Telegram voice memo. “Option number one, Mizintsev, who was fired for giving us shells and therefore now he cannot give shells. The second is the General Chief of Staff, Valery Vasilyevich Gerasimov, who is supposed to provide shells, but we do not receive enough shells, and we receive only 10%.”
A bit of context is in order here. For months, the boss of the Wagner private military company has seen his political star rise in Russia as his fighters seemed to be the only ones capable of delivering tangible battlefield progress in the grinding war of attrition in eastern Ukraine. And he has used his social-media clout to lobby for what he wants, including those sought-after ammunition supplies.
But amid those successes — particularly in the meatgrinder of Bakhmut — Prigozhin has revived and amplified a feud with Russia’s military leadership. A canny political entrepreneur, Prigozhin has cast himself as a competent, ruthless patriot — in contrast with Russia’s inept military establishment.
He has even trolled Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, a close confidant of Putin. In a letter he shared on social media Friday, the Wagner chief continued to place blame on the military for losing ground around Bakhmut – and dared Shoigu to visit the battleground himself.
“Currently, the units of the PMC Wagner control more than 95% of the settlement of Bakhmut and continue their offensive for its complete liberation,” Prigozhin wrote in a letter he shared on his social media accounts on Friday. “On the flanks of PMC Wagner, where the RF Armed Forces units are located, the enemy has launched a number of successful counterattacks.”
“I ask you to come to the territory of Bakhmut, which is controlled by the RF paramilitary units, and assess the situation on your own,” he added.
It may seem surprising in a country where criticizing the military can potentially cost a person a spell in prison that Prigozhin gets away with strident criticism of Putin’s generals. But Putin presides over what is often described as a court system, where infighting and competition among elites is in fact encouraged to produce results, as long as the “vertical of power” remains loyal to and answers to the head of state.
But Prigozhin’s online tantrums to be crossing the line to open disloyalty, some observers say.
In a recent Twitter thread, the Washington-based think tank Institute for the Study of War said, “If the Kremlin does not respond to Prigozhin’s escalating attacks on Putin it may further erode the norm in Putin’s system in which individual actors can jockey for position and influence (and drop in and out of Putin’s favor) but cannot directly criticize Putin.”
Speculation then centers on whether Prigozhin is politically expendable, whether his outbursts are a sort of clever deception operation — or, more troublingly for Putin, whether the system of loyalty that keeps the Kremlin running smoothly is starting to break down.
“This isn’t meant to happen in Putin’s system,” said Cold War historian and Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies professor Sergey Radchenko in a recent Twitter thread. “Putin’s system allows for minions to attack each other but never undermine the vertical. Prigozhin is crossing this line. Either Putin responds and Prigozhin is toast or — if this doesn’t happen — a signal will be sent right through. A signal that the boss has been fatally weakened. And this is a system that does not respect weakness.”
That theory will be tested in the coming days, as the battles continue to rage around Bakhmut.
by tyler | May 12, 2023 | CNN, europe
Ukrainian forces says they are conducting “effective counterattacks” in the Bakhmut area, in comments that are in line with claims from the leader of the Russian mercenary group Wagner that Kyiv has recaptured some territory.
Yevgeny Prigozhin on Wednesday accused a Russian brigade of abandoning its position in front-line Bakhmut, allowing Ukraine to seize territory. He reiterated his complaints on Thursday, saying areas previously captured by his fighters, at the expense of heavy casualties, were now being lost to the Ukrainians.
Bakhmut is the site of a months-long assault by Russian forces, including Wagner mercenaries, that has driven thousands from their homes and left the area devastated. But despite the vast amounts of manpower Russia has poured into capturing the city, they have been unable to take total control, and on Wednesday suffered heavy losses in the area.
The Russian Defense Ministry pushed back on claims that Ukrainian forces have made some breakthroughs along the front lines around Bakhmut Thursday, in an unusual late-night post on its Telegram channel.
“The statements spread by individual telegram channels about ‘defense breakthroughs’ in various sections of the line of contact are not true,” the ministry said on Telegram.
“Thanks to our well-thought-out defense in the Bakhmut sector, we are getting results from the effective actions of our units,” the commander of Ukrainian Land Forces, Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskyi, said on Telegram Wednesday.
“In particular, we are conducting effective counterattacks. In some areas of the front, the enemy was unable to withstand the onslaught of Ukrainian defenders and retreated to a distance of up to 2 kilometers.”
“Despite a significant concentration of troops and loud statements by Russian war criminals about their intentions to take Bakhmut by May 9, the enemy failed to capture the Ukrainian city. Our defense forces are holding the frontline securely and preventing the enemy from advancing. The battle for Bakhmut continues.”
At least two Russian military bloggers have reported a deteriorating situation for Russian forces around the city of Bakhmut.
The Russian Defense Ministry on Friday said that assault units continued “to liberate the western part” of the city with air and artillery support. A battle “is currently underway to repel an attack by the AFU unit in the direction of Maloilyinovka,” apparently a reference to a village within the Bakhmut area. “The enemy suffers significant losses in manpower and hardware,” it said.
The Ministry said that other attacks in two parts of the Donetsk region had been “thwarted.”
Prigozhin also accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of lying, after he remarked that Kyiv still needs “a bit more time” before it launches a much anticipated counteroffensive.
“Zelensky is lying,” Prigozhin said on his official social media channels Thursday. “The counteroffensive is in full swing.”
Ukrainian military officials have previously said the counterattacks around Bakhmut mentioned by Prigozhin are part of a “positional struggle,” and not necessarily related to a larger counteroffensive effort.
In a Telegram message on Thursday Prigozhin said: “The situation on the western flanks is developing according to the worst of the predicted scenarios. Those territories that were liberated with blood and lives of our comrades every day progressing by dozens or hundreds of meters during many months, today are abandoned almost without any fight by those who are supposed to hold our flanks,” he said.
Prigozhin’s perspective is in stark contrast to the views of one Ukrainian battalion commander in the area, who told CNN that it was Russian regular forces that were putting up the stiffest resistance, while Wagner units had been the first to run.
Prigozhin has also indicated that Ukrainian forces have been able to advance south of Bakhmut.
He had earlier fumed that a Russian brigade “fled” from Bakhmut area, allowing Ukrainians to seize kilometers of territory. In comments Tuesday, Prigozhin said that “one of the units of the Ministry of Defense fled from one of our flanks, abandoning their positions. They all fled and [laid] bare a front nearly 2 kilometers wide and 500 meters deep.”
Prighozhin said that the “72nd brigade f***ed up three square kilometers today, on which I had about 500 people killed. Because it was a strategic bridgehead. They just ran the hell out of there.”
He also blamed another private military contractor, known as “The Blue Torch,” for the reverse, saying it “scattered just like the 72nd Brigade did.”
“Instead of fighting, we have intrigues spinning all the time. We have a ministry of intrigue instead of a Ministry of Defense. That’s why we have an army running,” Prigozhin added.
The 72nd Brigade (or Separate Motorized Regiment as it is sometimes called) is part of the Russian military’s Western Military District.
As for soldiers fleeing, Prigozhin said: “That’s not the soldiers’ problem. It is the problem of those who manage them and who set the tasks. The fish rots from the head. A soldier leaves the trenches because it is not necessary to die [as] useless. A soldier may die, but a soldier should not die because of the utter stupidity of his leadership.”
The developments mark dramatic turn of events in an area where gains and losses have usually been measured in a few meters.
According to one well-known Russian military blogger in the area, the task of defending the flanks around Bakhmut was passed to regular Russian forces, while Wagner has consolidated its presence in the city itself.
One Ukrainian commander in the Bakhmut area said Thursday that Ukrainian units had struck at the Russians’ flanks and the enemy had retreated.
Taras Deyak of the Karpatska Sich tactical group told Radio Liberty: “The enemy’s flanks are cracking. Our intelligence has been watching and reporting on this. Indeed, a number of measures were planned and are still in progress.”
“We are so to say unclenching the pincers” – a reference to the attempts by Russian forces since the beginning of the year to squeeze Bakhmut.
“This allowed us to enter the city and facilitated our logistics,” Deyak said, while acknowledging that “the situation in the city of Bakhmut is very difficult, very tense and at times uncontrollable, to tell the truth.”
“The enemy has indeed occupied a very large part of the city. In fact, we control about 15% of Bakhmut. But we are holding on and we are holding the high-rise buildings – it is strategic.”
Deyak also dismissed claims made by Prigozhin that his fighters were deprived of munitions, saying Russian “artillery is hitting hard, the shelling is 24/7.” He also said that “new forces are arriving, these are regular forces of the Russian Armed Forces, who do not yet understand the situation in the city. We know this because we killed a lot of them as well as and took them prisoners.”
Deyak claimed that “Prigozhin is now amassing large forces in the city because he wants a political victory, to take the city politically. But he is running out of cannon fodder, so he is pulling up his cannon fodder from the flanks, and handing over the defense there to the regular units of the Russian Armed Forces.”
According to the Institute for the Study of War, geolocated footage published since Tuesday also showed that “Ukrainian forces likely conducted successful limited counterattacks north of Khromove (immediately west of Bakhmut) and northwest of Bila Hora (14km southwest of Bakhmut) and made marginal advances in these areas.”
The Russian Ministry of Defense has claimed that Airborne Forces (VDV) are constraining the actions of Ukrainian forces on the flanks around Bakhmut. However, other Russian units assigned to the Bakhmut area appear to have fared less well, including the 72nd Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade, which has lost hundreds of soldiers, according to Ukrainian estimates.
The ISW says that the 72nd “is emblematic of many of the endemic force generation issues constantly faced by the Russian military.” A brigade largely formed of volunteers last year, it was reported to have been severely depleted during Ukraine’s sudden offensive in Kharkiv last September.
by tyler | May 9, 2023 | CNN, europe
Spanish police have arrested 26 people in recent months for an alleged scheme to use water from illegal wells to grow subtropical fruit, as the country grapples with damaging heat and drought.
A Spanish Civil Guard statement said a four-year investigation had uncovered 250 illegal wells and ponds in the in a drought-stricken area Axarquia district east of Malaga, along the Mediterranean coast.
In addition to the dozens arrested, 44 people are under investigation in the alleged scheme, which is estimated to have caused nearly $11 million in damages.
The southern Andalusia regional government has strict water use restrictions for the area, which has been gripped by “a prolonged and exceptional drought” since June 2021.
More recently, key food producing regions of southern Spain, near Seville and Corboda, and in northeastern Spain near Barcelona, have seen low rainfall and high temperatures combine to diminish many local water reservoirs, the Spanish central government has reported.
April was the hottest and driest month recorded on the Spanish mainland since record-keeping began back in 1961 – 62 years ago – Spain’s national weather agency AEMET said on Friday.
The Spanish mainland received just 22 percent of the normal amount of rainfall in April.
Most of the fruit allegedly grown with water from the illegal wells were avocados and mangos, and the suspects include growers, business executives and workers at community irrigation projects, the Civil Guard press office in Malaga told CNN.
Authorities’ investigation into the alleged illegal wells scheme began with a complaint to the Civil Guard’s environmental investigative unit four years ago. Later various growers told authorities they also detected illegal use of water, Spanish police said.
The 44 people under investigation include those who sell and install irrigation pipes and equipment, and pumps to bring water out from wells.
The police said that prosecutors in Malaga specialized in environmental offenses were involved, along with an investigating magistrate at a court in the city of Velez Malaga.
The 26 people arrested have been arraigned before the magistrate there in recent months and released, with charges pending, the Malaga Civil Guard press office told CNN.
The police said the investigation includes alleged crimes against natural resources and the environment and fraudulent use of water.
