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Rail workers in Belgium are to strike over several days in the coming week as part of a union-led campaign for greater government investment in the network.

One train in four on average will run on Tuesday because of the action, called by the main rail unions, Belgium’s rail operator the SNCB said in a statement. The action will start late Monday from 2000 GMT.

Services in some regions will be completely halted according to media reports.

A 48-hour strike by train drivers on Wednesday and Thursday will further disrupt services.

Rail workers in Belgium have regularly denounced their worsening working conditions and called for greater government investment.

Greece has opened a probe into one of the country’s best-known child charities after numerous claims of alleged abuse and financial mismanagement, a justice ministry source told AFP on Sunday.

The Ark of the World, founded by a charismatic priest, has worked with underprivileged children for at least two decades in Athens and several other parts of Greece.

Since mid-November, Greek media have been broadcasting allegations of malfeasance at the charity from former staff and former children under its care, their faces obscured and voices disguised.

One 19-year-old told police that he was allegedly sexually molested by a senior charity official, according to media reports.

One former staffer said that he was fired after speaking out after a co-worker allegedly beat three boys.

Others have claimed that charity executives demanded monetary donations instead of clothes and food, and lived lives of luxury.

The government this week replaced the organisation’s entire board and installed new management.

The charity had been claiming to have some 500 children in its care, but deputy social affairs minister Domna Michailidou on Sunday told To Vima daily that the actual number was 136.

“(The children) are safe,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told Alpha TV on Friday, calling the case “complicated”.

“We are interested in seeing what happened as regards to the finances. Because these are facilities handled large sums of money, primarily from private donations,” Mitsotakis said. 

The non-profit had received millions of euros and dozens of properties from private donors over more than two decades, according to media.

The charity’s founder, Father Antonios Papanikolaou, who has worked with children from underprivileged Greek and migrant families since 1998, has dismissed the claims.

“It’s not possible. This cannot have happened. I never harmed a child,” he was quoted as saying by Star TV Wednesday.

The head of the Orthodox Church of Greece, Archbishop Ieronymos, sought to distance the church from the priest, saying Papanikolaou was “solely responsible” for running the charity and that he “never consented” to cooperate with church welfare officials.

In 2018, the Ark of the World was among 50 individuals and organisations from 26 EU countries to receive the annual European Citizen’s Prize, an award for initiatives that promote integration and tolerance.

The Ark had also received numerous domestic awards, including from the Athens Academy in 2008.

The government of Nicolas Maduro and the Venezuelan opposition broke a political stalemate Saturday with a broad social accord, and the US government responded by allowing a major US oil company to resume operations in Venezuela.

The accord heralded a potential easing of a grinding economic and political crisis in Venezuela.

It paves the way for the United Nations to oversee a trust fund of frozen assets of the Maduro government to be used for a variety of social projects in the South American country, including programs related to education, health, food security, flood response and electricity.

“We have identified a set of resources belonging to the Venezuelan state, frozen in the global financial system, to which it is possible to access,” said Dag Nylander, an envoy from Norway, which facilitated the negotiations. The amount to be released was not specified.

The agreement, signed in Mexico, ended 15 months of stalemate between the two sides, potentially easing a massive flow of refugees from Venezuela throughout the region and even impacting world oil markets.

Maduro praised the deal on Twitter, saying it “opens the way for a new chapter for Venezuela, to keep advancing towards the peace and well-being that all Venezuelans yearn for.”

And UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said in a statement that Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was committed to supporting the parties, calling the breakthrough “an important milestone that has the potential to deliver broader benefits for the people of Venezuela.”

The US Treasury Department said the accord marks “important steps in the right direction to restore democracy” in Venezuela, and responded by issuing a license to Chevron Corp. to resume limited oil extraction operations in Venezuela.

– World’s largest oil reserves –

The license will remain in effect for six months while the Biden administration assesses whether the Maduro government meets commitments made in the accord, Treasury said.

Chevron said it would “continue supporting social investment programs aimed at providing humanitarian relief” in the country and that the “decision brings added transparency to the Venezuelan oil sector.”

The relaxation of curbs on Chevron’s operations in Venezuela, which has the world’s largest oil reserves, would allow the nation to move toward re-entering global oil markets. 

International efforts to resolve the Venezuelan crisis have gained strength since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the pressure it has placed on global energy supplies.

A joint statement by Canada, the United States, Britain and the EU pledged “willingness to review sanctions” on Venezuela but demanded that it release political prisoners, respect press freedom and guarantee independence of the judiciary and electoral bodies. 

The powerful Democratic chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Robert Menendez, said the Biden administration should move slowly.   

   

– ‘Criminal dictatorship’ –

“If Maduro again tries to use these negotiations to buy time to further consolidate his criminal dictatorship, the United States… must snap back the full force of our sanctions that brought his regime to the negotiating table in the first place,” Menendez said in a statement. 

Despite its huge oil reserves, Venezuela suffers grinding poverty and a political crisis that has led a UN-estimated seven million Venezuelans to flee the country in recent years. Food, medicine and such basics as soap and toilet paper are often in short supply. 

Saturday’s accord made no headway on a critical issue: How to move ahead toward presidential elections scheduled for 2024.

Venezuela’s political crisis has worsened since Maduro declared himself victor of contested 2018 elections, which were widely seen as fraudulent, and generated widespread street protests.

Maduro’s opposition is seeking free and fair presidential elections while Caracas wants the international community to recognize Maduro as the rightful president and to lift sanctions, particularly a US oil embargo and freeze on the nation’s overseas assets.

After the contested 2018 elections, almost 60 countries, including the United States, recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as acting president.

The Unitary Platform opposition group has not reached consensus over the conditions it requires to take part in the vote, a source close to the negotiations told AFP.

Guaido’s influence has waned in recent years, and he has lost key allies both at home and in the region, where many countries have since elected leftist presidents.

Brand new homes intended for Equatorial Guinea’s lower-income families have cropped up across the capital Malabo, but shanty town residents say they are going to the middle class and wealthy instead.

President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo on Saturday won a sixth term in office, a much-expected result in an authoritarian country with next to no political opposition.

The 80-year-old has been in power for 43 years — the longest rule of any leader alive in the world today except monarchs.

During his election campaign in 2009, Obiang promised “social housing for all” in the oil-rich central African state.

Obiang planned to provide enough housing to raise Malabo’s shanty towns, including Nubili, a mass of tin-roofed shacks along narrow paths that is home to thousands of families in the heart of the city.

Since, some 20,000 housing projects have sprung up in the country of around 1.5 million residents.

But sitting outside his shack in Nubili, 70-year-old Julio Ondo said none of them appeared to be for people like him.

“They’ve made fools of the poor,” he said. I’ve lost all hope of one day living in “dignified housing”.

Most people live in poverty in Equatorial Guinea, the World Bank estimates, while wealth is concentrated in the hands of just a few families.

– ‘I’ll be dead’ –

In some parts of Malabo today, lines of identical apartment blocks have sprung up as far as the eye can see, built with the profits of high international oil prices.

In the suburb of Buena Esperanza, some 2,300 small detached homes appeared during the 2010s, supposed to welcome families from Nubili.

But today, shiny four-wheel drives and other expensive cars line the neighbourhood’s streets, appearing to indicate the wealth of its new residents.

The homes are being sold for around $15,500, payable in monthly instalments of $78.

But that is astronomical for many in Nubili.

Plantain farmer Antonio Omecha, 72, is one of many who had hoped the housing plan would allow him to leave a slum plagued with disease and frequent fires.

He said he did receive a housing coupon to go and live in Buena Esperanza.

“But we had to pay 1.5 million francs (more than $2,350)” upfront first, he said.

It was impossible on his monthly income of $30.

His neighbour Tobias Ondo, 65, said the new homes were simply too expensive.

“Do you really think someone who works seven days and barely makes 2,000 francs can afford to own such a home?” he said.

“I’ll be dead before I go and live in the public housing promised by the president.”

– ‘Powerful’ landlords –

Equatorial Guinea is the region’s third richest country, with a GDP per capita of $8,462 last year, after the Seychelles and Mauritius, the World Bank says.

But in 2006, when the oil boom was in full swing, more than three quarters of the population lived in “extreme poverty”, or on less than $1.90 a day, the international financial body said. There have been no new figures since.

The country ranked 172 out of 180 in Transparency International’s 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index.

During his election campaign at the start of the month, Obiang admitted that social housing intended for “people without great means” had been snapped up instead by “people able to build their own home”.

But he did not offer a solution.

Martinez Obiang, of micro-financing firm Atom Finances, says he thinks the homes should have cost no more than the equivalent of $780, payable in tiny monthly instalments of less than $3.

Sociologist Nsogo Eyi said the new homes, including those in Buena Esperanza, did not seem to be serving their intended purpose.

“Some powerful men have bought them to rent them out, including to expats,” he said.

AFP reached out to several of these new owners, but they refused to comment.

sam-lad-gir-tg/ah/imm

The government of Nicolas Maduro and the Venezuelan opposition broke a political stalemate Saturday with a broad social accord, and the US government responded by allowing a major US oil company to resume operations in Venezuela.

The breakthrough signaled a potential easing of a grinding economic and political crisis in Venezuela. It will impact world oil markets and could ease a massive flow of refugees from Venezuela throughout the region.

The accord reached at a meeting room in a hotel in Mexico City represents “hope for all of Latin America,” said Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, who helped bring the talks about.

The two sides in the Venezuelan crisis signed a humanitarian agreement focused on education, health, food security, flood response and electricity programs.

They also agreed to continue talks on presidential elections scheduled for 2024.

Venezuela’s political crisis has worsened since Maduro declared himself victor of a contested 2018 elections, which were widely seen as fraudulent. 

Immediately following the signing of the agreement in Mexico City, the US Treasury Department issued a license to oil major Chevron to resume limited oil extraction operations in Venezuela, which has the world’s largest reserves of crude.

The license will remain in effect for six months while the Biden administration judges whether the Maduro government meets commitments made in the accord signed Saturday, Treasury said.

International efforts to resolve the Venezuelan crisis have gained strength since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the pressure it has placed on global energy supplies.

Despite its huge oil reserves, Venezuela suffers grinding poverty and a political crisis that has led a UN-estimated seven million Venezuelans to flee the country in recent years. Food, medicine and such basics as soap and toilet paper are often in short supply. 

Maduro’s opposition is seeking free and fair presidential elections, next due in 2024, while Caracas wants the international community to recognize Maduro as the rightful president and to lift sanctions, particularly a US oil embargo.

Government negotiator Jorge Rodriguez told reporters after arriving in Mexico City that one of his objectives was to ink a “broad social agreement” with the opposition.

The government side said earlier that the pact was expected to establish a mechanism to restore access to funds frozen in the international financial system.

The money would be used to improve public health care and the power grid, according to a statement released by Rodriguez, who did not specify the amount or where the funds were blocked. 

– ‘Live in peace’ –

After the contested 2018 elections, almost 60 countries, including the United States, recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as acting president.

Rodriguez, who also presides over the National Assembly, said before departure from a Caracas airbase that his team will defend “the right that we have… to live in peace.”

For its part, the Unitary Platform opposition group demanded concrete steps to resolve “the humanitarian crisis, respect for human rights… and especially (guarantees for) free and observable elections.”

Nevertheless, a source close to the negotiating process told AFP that the opposition has not reached consensus over the conditions it requires to take part in a 2024 vote.

Guaido’s influence has waned in recent years, and he has lost key allies both at home and in the region, where many countries have since elected leftist presidents.

Colombian leader Gustavo Petro has become a new actor in the talks since taking the reins as his country’s first leftist president in August.

He has worked to improve his country’s relationship with Venezuela, resuming diplomatic ties for the first time since 2019, when then president Ivan Duque refused to recognize Maduro’s election.

The union representing UK firefighters said Saturday it was “sceptical” London Fire Brigade (LFB) leaders would implement reforms after an independent review concluded the service was institutionally misogynistic and racist.

The LFB has promised a “zero tolerance approach to discrimination, harassment and bullying” and accepted around two dozen recommendations from the damning review led by former senior prosecutor Nazir Afzal.

He discovered dozens of examples of racism, bullying and misogyny, including a female firefighter’s helmet being filled with urine and a black employee finding a noose above his locker.

In its response the Fire Brigades Union, the trade union for firefighters and other staff, noted it had “raised concerns about many of the issues contained within this report historically”.

Gareth Cook, its regional organiser for London, said the union was “committed to working to address these serious concerns” but that “we remain sceptical about the changes senior leaders will implement with regards to their own behaviours”.

“We aim to improve the working conditions of our members and protect them from discrimination and unfair or illegal treatment by representing them in the workplace,” he said.

London Fire Commissioner Andy Roe apologised late Friday “for the harm that has been caused” after the report’s contents were leaked by The Sunday Times.

The service’s response includes launching an external complaints system, and piloting the use of bodycams for when staff meet the public on home fire safety visits.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan called the review “a watershed moment” and the findings “abhorrent”.

He demanded “significant and necessary changes to root out all those found to be responsible for sexism, racism, misogyny, homophobia, bullying or harassment — and to support members of staff to speak out”.

The report has echoes of the 1999 Macpherson inquiry into London’s Metropolitan Police, following the racist murder of teenager Stephen Lawrence. 

That report condemned the force for “institutional racism”.

A quarter century on, the Met is still grappling with problems of racial and gender biases, amid a recent slew of allegations of sexual misconduct and discrimination.

Afzal said on Saturday staff working in other public bodies — including other police forces, the National Health Service (NHS) and the BBC — had come forward in the last 24 hours with “serious concerns” about their treatment.

He called for an expanded probe into sexism and racism across public bodies.

“There needs to be a national inquiry, particularly in relation to misogyny because this is a subject that hasn’t had the attention that it deserves,” Afzal added.

The union representing UK firefighters said Saturday it was “sceptical” London Fire Brigade (LFB) leaders would implement reforms after an independent review concluded the service was institutionally misogynistic and racist.

The LFB has promised a “zero tolerance approach to discrimination, harassment and bullying” and accepted around two dozen recommendations from the damning review led by former senior prosecutor Nazir Afzal.

He discovered dozens of examples of racism, bullying and misogyny, including a female firefighter’s helmet being filled with urine and a black employee finding a noose above his locker.

In its response the Fire Brigades Union, the trade union for firefighters and other staff, noted it had “raised concerns about many of the issues contained within this report historically”.

Gareth Cook, its regional organiser for London, said the union was “committed to working to address these serious concerns” but that “we remain sceptical about the changes senior leaders will implement with regards to their own behaviours”.

“We aim to improve the working conditions of our members and protect them from discrimination and unfair or illegal treatment by representing them in the workplace,” he said.

London Fire Commissioner Andy Roe apologised late Friday “for the harm that has been caused” after the report’s contents were leaked by The Sunday Times.

The service’s response includes launching an external complaints system, and piloting the use of bodycams for when staff meet the public on home fire safety visits.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan called the review “a watershed moment” and the findings “abhorrent”.

He demanded “significant and necessary changes to root out all those found to be responsible for sexism, racism, misogyny, homophobia, bullying or harassment — and to support members of staff to speak out”.

The report has echoes of the 1999 Macpherson inquiry into London’s Metropolitan Police, following the racist murder of teenager Stephen Lawrence. 

That report condemned the force for “institutional racism”.

A quarter century on, the Met is still grappling with problems of racial and gender biases, amid a recent slew of allegations of sexual misconduct and discrimination.