https://arab.news/59r7b
MOSCOW: A Moscow court has sentenced a former US diplomat to 14 years in prison for “large-scale” cannabis smuggling, the latest American to be caught up in Russia’s legal system. Russia and the United States regularly clash over the detention of each other’s citizens and sometimes exchange them in scenes reminiscent of the Cold War. The sentence comes as relations between Moscow and the West, particularly Washington, are tense after Moscow began its military operation in pro-Western Ukraine. “The American citizen (Marc) Fogel has been found guilty,” the Khimki court said in a statement late Thursday. It said Fogel committed “large-scale drugs smuggling” by crossing the Russian border, as well as “large-scale illegal storage of drugs without a commercial purpose.” Russian authorities in January said Fogel had been arrested by customs officers after arriving from New York with his wife at Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow. “During customs checks, the marijuana and hash oil were found in his luggage,” officials said, adding that the drugs were hidden in contact lens cases and e-cigarette cartridges. The incident took place in August 2021. Fogel, who worked as a teacher in the Anglo-American School of Moscow, insisted the marijuana was for medical purposes and that it was prescribed in the United States after a spinal operation. Russia has not made the use of cannabis legal for medicinal purposes. Russian officials say Fogel was employed in the US embassy in Moscow and benefitted from diplomatic immunity until May 2021. Several Americans are currently detained in Russian prisons, and vice versa. In April, the United States exchanged former American marine Trevor Reed, sentenced by a Russian court to nine years in prison for violence, for a Russian pilot who had been in a US jail since 2010. And US basketball star Brittney Griner is currently in pre-trial detention in a Russian jail for drugs smuggling. Griner’s detention came days before Russia defied US warnings and sent troops into Ukraine in late February.
COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Education ordered on Saturday the closure of schools in Colombo for the next week, as the island nation grapples with an acute fuel shortage that has ground transportation across the country almost to a halt.
Sri Lanka, facing its worst economic crisis since gaining independence in 1948, has lacked the foreign currency to finance the import of essential goods, including food, medicines and fuel, since late last year. The country’s existing stock of petrol and diesel is projected to run out in days.
The nation of 22 million people defaulted on a multimillion-dollar foreign debt payment last month, as inflation reached almost 40 percent. Long queues of people outside fuel stations are now a common sight, with many having waited for days to fill up their vehicles.
As the economic turmoil worsens, the Ministry of Education has announced that schools in the capital were to close for at least one week, citing “the transportation difficulties owing to the current fuel crisis.
“The Ministry of Education states that all government and government-approved private schools in Colombo city limits will remain closed for the next week,” a circular issued by the ministry reads.
Online education is to replace in-school learning for the time being, with authorities in the education sector scheduled to meet next Saturday to decide on the continuation of academic activities.
The announcement comes after the public administration ministry ordered on Friday the shutdown of government offices and schools across the country due to the fuel shortage. Earlier this week, the government had approved a four-day work week for public sector workers in a bid to conserve fuel.
The Ministry of Education said that schools outside Colombo, where transportation issues are not as prominent as in the capital, will continue in person.
Teachers in the capital said that students are losing an essential part of their education experience, while some raised concerns that some students may not be able to access virtual education.
“They are talking of online classes — how many children can afford this scheme? The smartphones and laptops are so costly, which makes them a distant dream,” Mohammed Nizar Mohamed, a master teacher formerly employed by the Ministry of Education, told Arab News.
Mohamed said that children in Sri Lanka have been psychologically impacted by a series of events that occurred in the last few years, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the Easter Sunday bombings in 2019. The deepening economic crisis and its impact on the education sector “adds fuel to the fire,” he said.
“The poor children, who are the future generation of our nation, have got caught innocently in this cycle,” M.S.M. Suhar, principal at Al-Meelad High School in Dehiwela, told Arab News.
“Children learn a lot from attending school daily. If that is lost, a major part of their school career which gives a variety of childhood experiences is lost,” Suhar said.
Nasriya Munas, principal of Muslim Ladies College in Colombo, said that even though lessons can also be conducted virtually, “classroom education is only a part of their school experience.
“But social interaction, the student-teacher relationship and the school environment cannot be enjoyed by the students,” Munas told Arab News.
DHAKA: Millions of people in northeast Bangladesh have been marooned by deadly floods triggered by monsoon rains, authorities said on Saturday, as they brace for a situation that could worsen.
Rescue and evacuation efforts were continuing as incessant rains affected communication lines and submerged railway lines, with worst-hit Sunamganj district in Bangladesh’s Sylhet region out of electricity for the past three days, officials said.
Two people have been killed by the floods in the region, while at least 19 others were reportedly killed by lightning strikes and landslides in other districts in Bangladesh. The devastating floods came just as the South Asian country was recovering from a similarly widespread deluge that had trapped millions hit the same region last month.
“Four million people have been marooned in Sylhet,” Mohammad Mosharraf Hossain, chief administrator of Sylhet region, told Arab News. “It’s a worsening situation. It’s still raining in Sylhet.”
Hossain said that the navy was called in on Saturday to help with rescue operations, as local authorities faced a shortage of water vessels to reach those who were trapped, and to distribute aid.
“At the moment we are facing a crisis of water vessels since we need plenty of country boats to rescue people from different remote areas. Now our top-most priority is to reach the flood victims and rescue them,” he said.
With more rain forecast over the weekend, state-run Flood Forecasting and Warning Center is expecting the deluge to worsen amid the region’s worst flooding in nearly two decades.
“This is the worst flood in the Sylhet region since 2004,” Arifur Rahman, an executive engineer at the center, told Arab News. “In Sylhet region, flood water will be increased on Saturday and Sunday also. We hope the water will start receding from Monday onwards.”
As record rainfall continues in the region, an expert said that any increase in rain intensity could worsen the already devastating situation.
“All the major rivers are at a very high risk. If the rainfall increases in the next couple of days, it will worsen the situation; flooding new areas in northern and central parts of the country,” Ainun Nishat, a climate change expert and professor at the BRAC University in Dhaka, told Arab News.
Food is the main concern for 33-year-old Arif Chowdhury, who is now taking refuge on the second floor of his home with three other families, as the first floor of his house has been submerged.
“At the moment my only concern is to have some cooked food as we don’t have any electricity or gas supply,” Chowdhury told Arab News.
Abdur Rahman, a 48-year-old farmer from Jaintapur subdistrict in Sylhet, said that he couldn’t save any of his belongings when his home was submerged on Thursday.
“I just rushed to this school building along with my wife and three children,” Rahman told Arab News.
“We faced two devastating floods in a short span of time. We don’t know what lies ahead, how can we survive?”
LONDON: The daughter of an Iranian-British-American tri-national imprisoned in Iran has accused the UK government of ignoring her family’s case after delivering a Father’s Day message to the UK Foreign Office.
Roxanne Tahbaz visited the Foreign Office to demand further information about the case of her father, 66-year-old Morad Tahbaz, who has been imprisoned by Tehran for more than four years.
She claimed that her appeal was transferred to an official, who said that they would pass on her message.
She said: “It was incredibly dispiriting. Father’s Day is the hardest day of all. While every day is challenging, special moments like holidays and birthdays are especially difficult for me and my siblings.
“Our father has been unjustly jailed in Iran for nearly four-and-a-half years, but (UK foreign secretary) Liz Truss and the government still haven’t informed us what they’re doing to secure his release.”
Roxanne Tahbaz said that the Foreign Office is offering token gestures in an attempt to delay her appeals.
“There doesn’t seem to be any sense of urgency — nothing to suggest the foreign secretary and her office feel they need to get my father out of prison immediately,” she added.
“On Thursday, Amnesty accompanied me as I took a Father’s Day card and gift to the Foreign Office. To our dismay, neither the foreign secretary nor a minister would meet us. Instead we were greeted by another member of their team who said they’d pass on our concerns.
“It feels like the government continually attempts to placate us with pleasantries and false promises.”
The Foreign Office is said to be communicating with Morad Tahbaz’s sister-in-law as well as his wife.
In March, the UK government reached a deal with Iran to secure Morad Tahbaz’s furlough, as well as the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori.
That deal involved negotiations over a decades-old military debt totaling almost $500 million owed by the UK to Iran.
Just after being granted furlough, however, Tahbaz — a prominent conservationist who was arrested during a 2018 crackdown — was forced to return to prison.
Roxanne Tahbaz has long campaigned for her father’s release, and has repeatedly claimed that the UK Foreign Office has ignored her requests for help.
After a demonstration in April, she said: “We want them to follow through on the promise they made to us.
“We were always led to believe over the past four years that he was to be a part of any deal they were making, and we were led to believe he’d be coming home as part of that.”
BRUSSELS: Russia is putting the world at risk of famine through its blockade of Ukraine’s shipments of grains and restrictions on its own exports, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Saturday. The threat to food security and a “battle of narrative” with Russia on Western-imposed sanctions on Moscow over Ukraine will dominate European Union foreign ministers’ talks in Luxembourg on Monday. “We are ready to work with the UN and our partners to prevent any unwanted impact on global food security,” Borrell said in an article published on his official blog. “Russia’s conscious political choice is to ‘weaponize’” grain exports and “use them as a tool for blackmail against anyone that opposes its aggression” in Ukraine, Borrell said. “Russia turned the Black Sea into a war zone, blocking shipments of grain and fertilizer from Ukraine but also affecting Russian merchant shipping. Russia is also applying quotas and taxes on its grain exports,” he added. The sanctions imposed by the EU “do not prohibit Russia to export any agricultural goods, payment for such Russian exports or the provision of seeds, provided that sanctioned individuals or entities are not involved.” “We are fully aware that there is a ‘battle of narratives’ around this issue” of sanctions, Borrell continued. He added that it was imperative that Ukrainian exports be allowed to resume by ship. “We are working closely with the UN on this issue and the EU and its member states are ready to do their part of the necessary actions to achieve this. “We hope that a solution can be found in the coming days. Not doing this threatens to cause a global food catastrophe,” he warned.
PARIS: Spain, France and other western European nations braced on Saturday for a sweltering June weekend that is set to break records, with forest fires and warnings over the effects of climate change. The weather on Saturday will represent a peak of a June heatwave that is in line with scientists’ predictions that such phenomena will now strike earlier in the year thanks to global warming. Forest fires in Spain on Saturday had burned nearly 20,000 hectares (50,000 acres) of land in the north-west Sierra de la Culebra region. The flames forced several hundred people from their homes, and 14 villages were evacuated. Some residents were able to return on Saturday morning, but regional authorities warned the fire “remains active.” Firefighters were still battling blazes in several other regions, including woodlands in Catalonia. Temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) were forecast in parts of the country on Saturday — with highs of 43 degrees C expected in the north-eastern city of Zaragoza. There have also been fires in Germany, where temperatures topped 40 degrees C on Saturday. A blaze in the Brandenburg region around Berlin had spread over about 60 hectares by Friday evening. Temperatures in France could reach as high as 42 degrees C in some areas on Saturday, French state weather forecaster Meteo France said, adding that June records had already been beaten in 11 areas on Friday. Farmers in the country are having to adapt. Daniel Toffaloni, a 60-year-old farmer near the southern city of Perpignan, now only works from “daybreak until 11.30am” and in the evening, as temperatures in his tomato greenhouses reach a sizzling 55 degrees C. “This is the earliest heatwave ever recorded in France” since 1947, said Matthieu Sorel, a climatologist at Meteo France. With “many monthly or even all-time temperature records likely to be beaten in several regions,” he called the weather a “marker of climate change.” Dutch authorities said they expect Saturday to be the hottest day of the year so far. The Netherlands’ national meteorological agency has issued a warning for the southern city of Limburg where temperatures could rise to 35 degrees C. “The elderly and people with vulnerable health can develop health problems due to the heat,” the agency said. The UK recorded its hottest day of the year on Friday with temperatures reaching over 30 degrees C in the early afternoon, meteorologists said. Several towns in northern Italy have announced water rationing and the Lombardy region may declare a state of emergency as a record drought threatens harvests. Ibrahim Thiaw, executive secretary of the UN convention charged with reversing land degradation, on Friday warned drought was “set to increase in severity and frequency.” “The consequences of droughts could affect up to three-quarters of humanity by 2050,” he said during a speech in Madrid. Experts warned the high temperatures were caused by worrying climate change trends. “As a result of climate change, heatwaves are starting earlier,” said Clare Nullis, a spokeswoman for the World Meteorological Organization in Geneva. “What we’re witnessing today is unfortunately a foretaste of the future” if concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere continue to rise and push global warming toward 2 degrees C from pre-industrial levels, she added.