by tyler | Jun 26, 2023 | CNN, europe
The weekend’s events in Russia seem an almost surreal interruption to the long slog of conflict unfolding in neighboring Ukraine. Yevgeny Prigozhin’s challenge to the Russian state erupted and receded in the space of 24 hours, but the consequences of his short-lived mutiny may reverberate for much longer.
Prigozhin’s Wagner forces, for all his boasting, were never going to be a match for the Russian security forces. The march on Moscow comprised scattered convoys that had little shape and less direction – and insufficient firepower to challenge the regular military.
Despite Prigozhin’s bluster, there is virtually no evidence that any regular Russian units came over to Wagner’s side, though some may have opted not to confront them. In some ways, it was surprising that Prigozhin’s columns got as far as they did.
And yet, the saga was humiliating to the Russian military and at least embarrassing to the Kremlin. There was the bizarre recorded encounter between Prigozhin and two very senior military officers in Rostov-on-Don, during which he upbraided them like teenagers sentenced to detention (and said that Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu had run away).
Prigozhin and his men were able to take over the headquarters of the Southern Military District without a murmur, let alone a shot. Indeed, Russian regular forces (except for a couple of helicopters over the city of Voronezh) appear to have sleepwalked through the day’s events.
The brief drama forced a visibly angry President Vladimir Putin to address the nation early on Saturday and threaten Prigozhin with dire consequences, even raising the specter of civil war in the process. The much-prized sense of national purpose in an existential struggle against what Moscow falsely claims are Ukrainian neo-Nazis that were creatures of the West was punctured by what was at times a day of melodrama.
Some moments, such as the hasty erection of roadblocks on Moscow’s southern outskirts and the mobilization of Chechen special forces to move on Rostov, were reminiscent of the 1991 attempted coup by Soviet hardliners against Mikhail Gorbachev – not in a political sense but for the haphazard and inchoate nature of events.
Above all, the day exposed the transactional nature of relationships among Russian elites. What had begun as “treasonous” behavior and a criminal challenge to the state that must be ruthlessly dealt with ended with a tawdry deal brokered by the dictator next door that gave Prigozhin a “get-out-of-jail-free card,” and amnesty to the mutineers advancing on Moscow.
This was not lost on Kyiv, with an adviser to the head of the Ukrainian president’s office, Mikhailo Podolyak, saying that “at the end of the day, everything goes back to normal, (Prigozhin) is not a traitor, he is a hero of Russia, and so on. It’s a failed state.”
Russian state media has gone to great lengths to show how Putin was in control throughout. “The whole night the president has been in touch with all law enforcement structures,” said Pavel Zarubin, a state TV reporter on Sunday.
And in reality Russia “is not on the verge of a civil war or major upheaval, even if there is a not negligible level of discontent with the state of affairs across the country,” concludes Thomas Graham at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank.
But as Prigozhin was granted an escape route hours after betting the farm on overthrowing the military establishment, his departure from the scene still left Putin looking weaker, even a touch naïve.
For years Putin had tolerated and even encouraged Prigozhin’s ambitions, his Wagner private military company was at first a cheap way to project Russian power in Africa, perform basic guard duty in Syria and later serve as a useful counterweight to the defense establishment, which the Wagner chief reviled in ever more sulphuric language after the launch of the Ukraine operation.
Prigozhin’s activism, his plundering of Russian jails for cannon fodder, the readiness of his fighters to go on the offensive and ultimately take the city of Bakhmut despite hideous losses, was in contrast to the almost invisible leadership of the Defense Ministry and the ever-changing cast of generals leading the “special military operation.”
Putin indirectly scolded him this month after Prigozhin refused an order to register (and thereby defang) Wagner with the Defense Ministry (in trademark colorful language); but no action was taken. That attempt by the ministry may have tipped Prigozhin into his drastic demarche, but even if Putin saw it coming he failed to head it off. He said the actions of his former chef and St. Petersburg comrade were a “stab in the back.”
The leadership of the Defense Ministry, specifically Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, was silent and apparently absent throughout the crisis. Their already tarnished reputations appear to have taken another blow, while two senior generals did speak up – demanding Prigozhin end his escapade.
One Ukrainian officer noted with some satisfaction that “numerous senior officers responsible for decision-making chose to abstain from issuing orders or making decisive moves, opting to wait for the outcome.”
It may take weeks for any personnel reshuffle to materialize in Moscow but “someone will have to take the blame for not nipping the rebellion in the bud. It is a fair bet that Putin will not blame himself. There will be much finger-pointing inside the Kremlin, as elite factions seek to save their own positions and erode their rivals’,” says CFR’s Graham.
The weekend’s events seem to have chipped away at the already fading veneer of Putin’s omniscience, eroded by a series of miscalculations in the planning and execution of the war and a severe underestimation of the West’s response.
How could such a pantomime unfold under the watch of the fabled ex-KGB agent, laying bare the rifts among Russian elites? As US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN on Sunday, 16 months ago Russian forces had expected to take Kyiv “in a matter of days.”
“Now, they have to be focused on defending Moscow – Russia’s capital – against mercenaries and Putin’s own men.”
Graham echoes that.
“It will inevitably distract attention of Russia’s senior leaders from the war effort — and not only in the short-term … The Kremlin will have to devote greater resources to ensuring that no similar threat emerges in the future,” he writes.
In an authoritarian state, doubt is corrosive. Phillips O’Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, says that “for a dictatorship built on the idea of unchallenged power, this was an extreme humiliation, and it’s hard to see the genie of doubt ever being forced back into the bottle.”
Hanna Notte, a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, agrees – up to a point.
“It’s conceivable that the corrosion of his rule is in motion. And more importantly, that the process will continue,” Notte wrote on Twitter. “But there’s also the possibility that the immense dysfunctionality of the system we observed yday can prove quite durable & not become dangerous to #Putin.”
Putin appears to believe that he can wear down all opponents – the West, Ukraine and probably Prigozhin. And Notte says that if “Ukraine’s counter-offensive falls below expectations, the regime might prove less brittle than many thought.”
The Kremlin may well use the upheaval to strengthen still further the apparatus of oppression, the one part of the Russian state that appears to work relatively efficiently.
Still unknown, the trickle-down effect of the weekend’s events on the rank-and-file Russian troops in Ukraine whose morale is already brittle. Many will likely be asking themselves yet again what they are fighting for as the Ukrainian counter-offensive gains pace.
And of course the episode is only a fillip for the Ukrainians. One Ukrainian military officer was provocatively shown on social media eating popcorn as he watched events in Russia unfold.
Podolyak says that “Prigozhin humiliated Putin/the state and showed that there is no longer a monopoly on violence,” and went on to mock the Russian state as a “flimsy structure held together by inertia on a wing and a prayer.”
Hyperbole of course, but as Ukraine’s counteroffensive struggles to gain momentum, the prospect (however faint) of an internal threat to Putin is likely a comforting thought.
As for Prigozhin, last seen shaking hands with admirers as he left Rostov: his current whereabouts are unknown.
But he released new audio on Monday explaining his decision to stop what he called a “march” on Moscow. Prigozhin claimed he wanted to avoid Russian bloodshed, and also said the march was a demonstration of protest, not an attempt to overturn power in the country.
He added that the Russian Defense Ministry had planned for his Wagner private military group to “cease to exist” from July 1.
“Prigozhin’s instrument is Telegram. Putin is famously not on the Internet; he apparently doesn’t understand social media. Big mistake,” says Stalin biographer Stephen Kotkin.
As for the bigger picture, Putin’s Kremlin “remained, and remains, viable as long as there is no political alternative,” Kotkin adds. “Now, we might see just how hollow the regime is. Putin has unwittingly launched a stress test of his own regime.”
by tyler | Jun 26, 2023 | CNN, europe
Russian President Vladimir Putin has made his first public address since Saturday, after Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin and his forces abandoned their march to Moscow during a short-lived insurrection.
“The armed rebellion would have been suppressed anyway,” Putin said, adding that “civil solidarity showed that any blackmail and attempts to organize an internal mutiny will end in defeat.” The brief address appeared to be pre-recorded from inside the Kremlin, according to Russian state media TASS.
Prigozhin broke his own silence earlier on Monday, saying that the aborted uprising had been a protest rather than an attempt to topple the government.
“The purpose of the march was to prevent the destruction of PMC Wagner and to bring to justice those who, through their unprofessional actions, made a huge number of mistakes during the special military operation,” Prigozhin said in an audio message, referring to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Troops from his private military group seized control of a military base and moved in convoy towards Russia’s capital on Saturday in a remarkable and unexpected challenge to Putin. The march was suddenly called off when a supposed deal was struck that would see Prigozhin move to Belarus.
Wagner’s march toward Moscow not only marked a drastic escalation in Prigozhin’s long-running feud with Russia’s Defense Ministry, but has left an air of uncertainty and more questions for Putin, who is recovering from one of the gravest challenges to his authority in decades. Questions also remain on Prigozhin’s whereabouts and the future of Russia’s war with Ukraine, in which Wagner played a crucial role.
Prigozhin claimed Monday that Russia’s Defense Ministry had planned for Wagner to “cease to exist” from July 1.
“Overnight, we have walked 780 kilometers (480 miles), 200-something kilometers (125 miles) were left to Moscow,” Prigozhin claimed in his Monday message, despite no evidence that Wagner forces made it that close to the Russian capital.
“Not a single soldier on the ground was killed,” Prigozhin added. “We regret that we were forced to strikes on aircraft,” he said. “…but these aircraft dropped bombs and launched missile strikes.”
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko “extended his hand” and offered to find solutions to further the work of the Wagner Group in a legal way, Prigozhin said, mirroring the line that Minsk and the Kremlin has communicated about why the march – which for several hours appeared to be an armed insurrection on the Russian state – suddenly ended.
Prigozhin claimed that residents of Russian towns “were all happy [to see us]” adding that “many of them still write us words of support and some are disappointed that we stopped, because in the march of justice, in addition to our struggle for existence, they saw support for the fight against bureaucracy and other ills that exist in our country today.”
But videos posted to social media show a more nuanced picture.
Wagner forces were met with some cheering in Rostov-on-Don, where on Saturday, local people were taking photos with Wagner fighters, chatting with them, and jubilantly climbing their equipment.
But many of those videos show Russians cheering only after the announcement of the apparent deal brokered by Lukashenko. Videos of the Wagner convoy en route to Moscow only show it sitting on the roadside, and traveling through cities in apparent attempts to bypass blockades and roadblocks – there were no crowds or people that greeted them.
Belarusian state news agency Belta said Lukashenko would soon provide answers to “a lot of questions, planted stories, versions and assumptions,” in a cryptic Telegram post. in apparent reference to queries surrounding Minsk-brokered deal.
Belarusian officials have previously said they cannot confirm if Prigozhin has arrived in the country or what his status will be in Belarus.
The future role of Prigozhin or his Wagner group remains unclear. The unit has been increasingly essential to Russia’s war effort in Ukraine.
The investigation into the criminal case involving Prigozhin and his alleged involvement in organizing an armed mutiny is still active, Russian state news agency TASS said Monday, citing a source close to the Prosecutor General’s Office.
On Saturday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had told journalists a deal had been reached with Prigozhin and the charges against him for calling for “an armed rebellion” would be dropped, without providing a time frame.
“We stopped at the moment when the detachment, which had approached Moscow, deployed its artillery, made a reconnaissance of the area, and it was obvious that at that moment a lot of blood would be shed. We felt that demonstrating what we were going to do was sufficient,” Prigozhin said Monday.
Russian President Putin has not spoken about the events since a televised address on Saturday, in which he threatened severe punishments against those conducting what he called an “armed rebellion.”
A pre-recorded video of Putin addressing the “International Youth Industrial Forum” from behind a nondescript desk flanked by Russian flags was released by the Kremlin on Monday, but there was no information about when or where the clip was filmed. In the short video, Putin makes no mention of the events of the past weekend, focusing instead on the forum.
Prigozhin had previously accused Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Russia’s top general, Valery Gerasimov, of not giving his forces ammunition and was critical of their handling of the conflict, but he always defended the reasoning for the military campaign and steered clear of criticizing Putin himself.
But he crossed these red lines over the weekend. Late on Friday, Prigozhin accused Russia’s military leadership of killing his fighters during a strike on a Wagner camp, which the Russian Defense Ministry has denied.
He also said Moscow invaded Ukraine under false pretenses devised by the Russian Ministry of Defense, and that Russia is actually losing ground on the battlefield.
“When we were told that we were at war with Ukraine, we went and fought. But it turned out that ammunition, weapons, all the money that was allocated is also being stolen, and the bureaucrats are sitting [idly], saving it for themselves, just for the occasion that happened today, when someone [is] marching to Moscow,” Prigozhin said.
What followed was a remarkable 24-hour confrontation that seemingly weakened Putin’s reputation and sowed further discord and infighting in Russia’s military ranks.
by tyler | Jun 22, 2023 | CNN, europe
Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich lost his appeal against the extension of pre-trial detention in Moscow on Thursday on spying charges, which he denies.
Gershkovich’s detention, at the notorious Lefortovo prison in Moscow, was extended last month to August 30. He faces up to 20 years in jail on espionage charges, which he and his employer vehemently contest.
Gershkovich was in court for the decision, in a glass cage, wearing a dark t-shirt and jeans.
The US ambassador to Russia, Lynne Tracy, was also at the hearing at Moscow City Court, as were his parents, Ella Milman and Mikhail Gershkovich.
Tracy told reporters outside the court that the US was “extremely disappointed” by the decision to reject Gershkovich’s appeal.
“This was a procedural hearing, appealing the conditions of his continued detention and we were extremely disappointed by the denial of his appeal,” Tracy said, adding that she “could not speak with Evan directly at the courthouse today,” and blasted Russia’s denial of US diplomats’ requests for consular access to him.
“Failing to comply with its obligations under the consular convention enforced between our two countries, Russia has denied the US embassy’s requests for formal consular access on three occasions since I last visited Evan in April,” she said.
“Nonetheless, today, in the courtroom, Evan continued to show remarkable strength and resiliency in these very difficult circumstances.”
Earlier on Thursday, Russian state news agency TASS reported that the Russian Foreign Ministry was considering a request from the United States for consular access to Gershkovich.
The Wall Street Journal called Gershkovich’s continued detention “an outrage” in a statement released Thursday.
“Our colleague Evan Gershkovich appeared in Moscow City Court today for an appeal against his ongoing pretrial detention. Although the outcome was expected, it is no less an outrage that his detention continues to be upheld.”
“Evan has been wrongfully detained for more than 12 weeks for nothing more than doing his job as a journalist,” the statement continued. “We continue to demand his immediate release.”
Russia’s main security service, the FSB, has claimed that Gershkovich, a correspondent based in Moscow, had been trying to obtain state secrets.
His arrest in March was the first detention of an American reporter in Russia on allegations of spying since the Cold War, rattling White House officials and further straining ties between Moscow and Washington.
On May 23, his detention was extended until at least August 30 while he awaits trial.
The US State Department has officially designated Gershkovich as wrongfully detained in Russia. US President Joe Biden has also been blunt about Gershkovich’s arrest, urging Russia to “let him go.”
by tyler | Jun 22, 2023 | CNN, europe
Carl Nwazota was born and grew up in the London suburb of Wembley to parents from Jamaica and Nigeria. For 26 years, he was a UK citizen with a British passport – until it was confiscated by the Home Office after he tried to renew it in 2000, he told CNN.
For the next 22 years, Nwazota lived in constant fear of being deported as his life began to unravel.
His business was closed because he was prevented from working by the Home Office, and he could not gain employment or social housing due to his lack of documents, he said. He was forced to live in temporary accommodation, with intermittent periods of homelessness. He watched the world pass him by from the fringes of society: sleeping in a tent under a shop window, or in an abandoned van in a supermarket car park. Often, he would go to bed hungry due to his benefits being stopped, he recalled – as “no fixed abode” became his new identity in the corridors of the job center.
Christmases and birthdays passed by for almost two decades until the Home Office acknowledged that Nwazota was a British citizen over a phone call in 2018, he said.
For the next four years, Nwazota says, he remained homeless while he struggled to regain his passport. Many of his documents were lost after he claims the council threw away his tent, and he could not receive response letters from the Home Office as he had no permanent address.
“I had been told I was a British citizen – but I was still waiting to get back my passport, waiting for an apology from the Home Office – all while living in a van. I’m not a weak guy but I had no hope. I tried to take my own life,” he said.
Nwazota has since recovered and received his passport from the Home Office in 2022. “The first thing I did when I got my passport back was get a job – and I’m proud to say, I work as a bin man (refuse collector). But even though I’m back in the real world – it’s too late for me. I’m 49 years old now. The Home Office has taken my life from me.”
Nwazota is one of thousands who found their lives derailed in what became to be known as the Windrush scandal, which saw the British Home Office deny residency rights and citizenship to many people who had been living in the UK legally for most, if not all, of their lives.
The victims were members and descendants of the so-called Windrush generation – mostly Caribbean migrants who moved to Britain in the post World War II-era in answer to a call for labor shortages, with the first arriving on the Empire Windrush 75 years ago Thursday. Citizens of former British colonies in South Asia and Africa also became entangled in the scandal.
Like Nwazota, many of their children had been born in Britain and have known no other home, yet also had their UK citizenship revoked.
Experts told CNN this was due to the UK government’s “hostile environment” policy – a government crackdown on immigration that misclassified the Windrush generation as illegal immigrants.
This has led to multiple generations suffering often devastating harm: job losses, home evictions, no access to healthcare, detentions and even deportations, as outlined in the government commissioned Windrush Lessons Learned Review. In 2018, the Windrush Compensation Scheme was set up to provide compensation to victims of the scandal.
In April that year, Britain’s then-Prime Minister, Theresa May, apologized for her government’s treatment of some Caribbean immigrants and insisted they were still welcome in the country.
But on the 75th anniversary of the arrival of the Empire Windrush, thousands are still struggling to access compensation despite the Home Office reinstating their British citizenship.
In April, a report by the NGO Human Rights Watch stated that the Windrush compensation scheme “is failing victims and violating the rights of many to an effective remedy for human rights abuses they suffered.”
Nwazota has applied to the Windrush Compensation Scheme four times – but his application has always been rejected.
In documents seen by CNN, Nwazota was told by the Home Office that he meets the eligibility criteria to apply for compensation but that it has been unable to determine “whether he suffered detrimental impacts” due to a lack of evidence.
Nwazota is currently struggling to find a lawyer to take his case due to his lack of documents and funds.
According to the latest Home Office statistics, 1,518 people have received compensation so far. Another 381 have had their claims refused or withdrawn due to ineligibility and 1,988 have claims that “meet the eligibility criteria” but have been awarded zero compensation. This suggests that of an estimated 15,000 victims believed to be eligible for compensation, some 90% have yet to receive any payout since the scandal broke five years ago.
Anna Steiner, a lawyer and academic who represents Windrush claimants, told CNN that the Windrush compensation scheme is “not fit for purpose.”
“The government has access to all the victims’ documents: health records, information from the passport office and their employment history. These are British people who have paid tax and national insurance, have worked for all their lives and the government has confirmed their status as UK citizens, and yet, victims are still being denied access to compensation for the harm caused to their lives,” Steiner said.
“Even when you’ve spent months gathering evidence, drafted clear statements, and have demonstrated a clear impact on (victims’) lives, applications are not assessed properly by the Home Office. There seems to be a bureaucratic tick-box attitude to the claims where people are not recognized as human beings,” Steiner added.
Thomas Tobierre was stripped of the right to work after being told he was not a British citizen and has subsequently received compensation, but his wife Caroline, who was also entitled to compensation under the Windrush scheme, only received her payment after she died with cancer.
“My wife had to work while she was ill – because I was not allowed to work because of the Home Office,” Tobierre told CNN.
“The level of evidence you have to produce is ridiculous – it is almost impossible to prove your status,” said Charlotte Tobierre, Thomas’ daughter. “Because they took so long to compensate, we ran out of time to enjoy life with my mum. The last year of my mum’s life was ruined – the Windrush scandal overshadowed my mum’s battle with cancer.
“When the compensation arrived, it just about covered the cost of her funeral.”
To make matters more complicated, the Windrush Compensation Scheme does not make allowances for legal costs in making claims, Steiner told CNN.
This means that many of the applicants who have been out of work and accumulated debt cannot afford the legal representation they need to help with their claims, Zita Holbourne, co-founder and national chair of anti-racism group Black Activists Rising Against Cuts and a Windrush campaigner, told CNN.
“Approaching its 75th anniversary, the government should be doing something to make the scheme accessible – and the scheme should take it out of the hands of the Home Office. People have no trust when applying because they are the same institution that detained, criminalized and deported the applicants in the first place,” Holbourne added.
Anthony Bryan, now 65, was 8 years old when he moved to Britain from Jamaica. He told CNN he was detained by the UK government on two separate occasions in 2017 – and was going to be deported to Jamaica by the Home Office until a last-minute intervention from his lawyers. He had also lost his job after he was asked for a right to work permit, he said, and he had been stripped of healthcare access after falling ill. Bryan could not claim benefits, as he did not have the required documents, he added.
His British nationality has since been reinstated. The Home Office has offered him – after deductions – £65,000 and he is appealing. His wife Janet, who is also entitled to compensation, is also appealing her offer under the scheme. Windrush Lives, an advocacy group and victim support network which is helping Janet, says the Home Office is currently disputing the £300 she is claiming for expenses after she repeatedly traveled to visit Bryan while he was wrongfully detained for five weeks.
The Home Office has not yet responded to CNN’s request for comment on these cases and its wider handling of the Windrush Compensation Scheme.
According to the latest government statistics from the Home Office, 1,227 claimants are seeking a review. Meanwhile, the number of people being awarded zero compensation is continuing to rise – particularly over the past year. While in April 2022 there were only 26 applicants eligible but receiving zero compensation, a year later this number had risen almost six-fold to 152.
As the backlogs and rejections grow, Home Secretary Suella Braverman issued a statement in January that rowed back on three of the recommendations from the government-commissioned “Windrush Lessons Learned Review.”
These included the appointment of a migrants’ commissioner and the commitment to hold a series of “reconciliation events” with people affected, to “listen and reflect on their stories,” the Windrush Lessons Learned Review stated.
Subira Cameron-Goppy, who works as part of the Windrush Justice Clinic, providing support to victims, told CNN: “The UK government consistently double-down on their own mistakes and have failed to rectify their errors. These failures are a part of a continuation of the government’s hostile environment policy.”
In February 2023, the Conservative government published an assessment of the hostile environment policy’s impact between 2014 and 2018. The report concluded that the five nationalities most impacted by the policy were of Brown or Black heritage and all five were visibly not White.
Ramya Jaidev, a co-founder of Windrush Lives, told CNN that the hostile environment was not simply about “two or three specific policy errors but is the result of a series of increasing legislative push-backs that started in 1962 with the reduction of the rights of Black people. The attitude towards migrants is to phase them out. The Windrush Compensation Scheme is an extension of a hostile environment for Black and Brown people.”
For some people, any compensation awarded is too late. Taiwo Abiona arrived in the UK in the late 50s from Nigeria. He worked as a postman for the Royal Mail, paid taxes and got a British passport in the 1960s. After the death of his wife, Stella, he went to renew his passport – but he was told he was no longer a British citizen, his son, Kemi Abiona, told CNN.
“They said a change of policy in the 70s meant he had to reapply then – we didn’t know he had to reapply – as far as we’re concerned he was a British citizen. When my dad lost his passport, he was devastated, and his health quickly deteriorated. He had no access to proper healthcare because he did not have the documents,” Abiona told CNN.
“While he was sick, we had been told to apply for a new passport through the Windrush scheme and we were told he would get compensation,” Abiona added. He helped his father fill in the application himself, because they could not afford a lawyer. “I kept telling my dad we will have money soon,” Abiona said.
In 2020, Taiwo Abiona received a letter saying he had indefinite leave to stay and that he would be able to apply for UK citizenship after a period of living in the UK – despite having lived there for nearly 70 years. “We were told compensation was on the way so we could get a carer for my dad – but it was too late,” Abiona told CNN. His father died two weeks after being told by the Home Office he could stay in the UK.
A week after his death, the Home Office paid £5,000 compensation to cover some of the cost of his funeral, Kemi Abiona said. He is now making a Windrush compensation claim through the Home Office to save up for a headstone for his father’s grave.
by tyler | Jun 22, 2023 | CNN, europe
Six people remain in a critical condition and one person is missing after a gas explosion in central Paris on Wednesday, the Paris prosecutor’s office told CNN on Thursday.
Some 50 people were injured in the incident, although the Paris prosecutor’s office, which is investigating the blast, said the number may not be final.
About 270 firefighters were deployed to the scene near Rue Saint Jacques in the city’s fifth arrondissement, and contained the fire within two hours, Paris police chief Laurent Nunez told reporters.
Francois Braun, France’s health minister, told CNN affiliate BFMTV Thursday that some of those injured are suffering from “extremely significant burns,” while others have suffered “significant traumatic injuries” due to the blast.
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin visited the site of the explosion on Wednesday. He said it was unclear how exactly the explosion occurred, adding there was no warning before the incident.
Laure Beccuau, the Paris prosecutor said that early signs indicate that the gas explosion came from within the building that houses the Paris American Academy, according BFMTV.
A part of the building collapsed following the blast and fire, videos show. Smoke was seen billowing from the rubble earlier on Wednesday as rescue workers attempted to tackle the blaze.
Paris American Academy, a fashion and design school, describes itself on its website as the “first bilingual design school” in the French capital
Kent State University, in the US state of Ohio, said all its students at the Paris American Academy are safe and accounted following the blast.
Locals were also stopped from returning to their homes in surrounding streets by authorities in the aftermath of the explosion.
One woman, who gave her name as Anne, told a CNN producer at the scene that she was inside her flat, around 500 meters (1,640 feet) from the site, when the explosion happened.
“It felt like an earthquake, the windows banged against each other,” she said.
Another woman who didn’t want to give her name and lives in a neighboring avenue told CNN that her doors slammed shut from the explosion.
Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo visited the scene later on Wednesday, writing in a tweet, “My thoughts go first of all to the victims and their close ones.” Authorities in Paris have opened an emergency response unit to handle the aftermath of the explosion.
French President Emmanuel Macron briefly addressed the disaster later on Wednesday, thanking the first responders for their work. “In celebrating music today, we are also thinking of [the victims] and all those who are going through a difficult time,” Macron added before launching a performance Wednesday night at Élysée for the Music Day.
by tyler | Jun 20, 2023 | CNN, europe
Estonia’s parliament passed on Tuesday a law legalizing same-sex marriage, becoming the first ex-Soviet country to do so.
Two adults will be able to marry “regardless of their gender,” after the parliament approved amendments to the country’s Family Law Act, according to a press statement.
The amended act will go into effect from January 1, 2024.
The amendments to the Family Law Act also mean that same-sex couples can now adopt children. In Estonia, only a married couple can adopt a child, although single gay, lesbian and bisexual people can also petition to adopt.
“Everyone should have the right to marry the person they love and want to commit to,” Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said. “With this decision we are finally stepping among other Nordic countries as well as all the rest of the democratic countries in the world where marriage equality has been granted.
“This is a decision that does not take anything away from anyone but gives something important to many,” she continued. “It also shows that our society is caring and respectful towards each other. I am proud of Estonia.”
Same-sex relationships have been legally recognized in Estonia since 2016, when the Registered Partnership Act took effect. But while this act recognized couples regardless of their sex, marriage was only allowed to take place between members of the opposite sex.
A survey undertaken by the Estonian Human Rights Centre in April 2023 found that 53% of the Estonians believe that “same-sex partners should have the right to marry each other.”
This is the highest percentage recorded since the survey began in 2012. Then, 60% of people surveyed were against marriage equality.
“I am genuinely very grateful for the patience and understanding the LGBT+ community has shown for all these years,” said Signe Riisalo, Estonia’s Minister of Social Protection.
“I hope that, in time, those opposed to marriage equality come to see that we don’t lose anything from taking such steps, but rather that we all gain from them,” Riisalo added. “I am delighted that the decision has now been taken for a more forward-looking Estonia that cares for all.”
