World

On her way out the door on Wednesday, UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet will release a report on alleged violations in China’s Xinjiang region, infuriating Beijing.

The outgoing High Commissioner for Human Rights promised to release the report before her mandate expires at the end of August.

“The report on Xinjiang will go out by the end of the day,” spokesman Jeremy Laurence told AFP with just hours left of her four-year term.

Beijing stands accused of detaining more than one million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in the far-western Xinjiang region.

Campaigners accuse China of a litany of abuses, including mass incarceration, forced labour, compulsory sterilisation and the destruction of Uyghur cultural and religious sites.

The United States and lawmakers in other Western countries have gone as far as accusing China of committing “genocide” against the minority groups.

Beijing vehemently rejects the claims and has long insisted it is running vocational training centres in Xinjiang designed to counter extremism.

It claims the allegations are part of a plot by the United States and other Western nations to smear China and contain its rise.

Bachelet came under increasing pressure to investigate and speak out as the allegations mounted.

– A ‘fabricated lie’: China –

Nearly a year ago, the former Chilean president told the UN Human Rights Council that an independent evaluation of the situation was needed — and indicated that her office was finalising a report.

But it was repeatedly delayed amid growing impatience from rights groups and some countries.

Zhang Jun, China’s ambassador to the UN in New York, said Beijing had made it clear to Bachelet that it was “firmly opposed” to the rights assessment.

“The so-called Xinjiang issue is a completely fabricated lie out of political motivations and its purpose is definitely to undermine China’s stability and to obstruct China’s development,” he told reporters.

Zhang said Bachelet should “stay independent and… not resign to the political pressure of a number of Western countries.”

Bachelet and her office have repeatedly explained that one reason the report was delayed was because it had been sent to Beijing first for comments, as is common with such reports.

But Zhang maintained that Chinese officials had not seen the report yet, and were in any case “completely opposed” to it.

“It simply undermines the cooperation between the UN and a member state. It completely interferes in China’s internal affairs,” he said.

– ‘Cowardly’ –

In her farewell press conference last Thursday, Bachelet admitted she was under “tremendous pressure to publish or not to publish” the long-delayed report.

“But I will not publish or withhold publication due to any such pressure,” she said.

But her decision to release the report on her way out the door, leaving her as-yet unappointed successor to deal with the aftermath, has raised some eyebrows.

During a press briefing in New York on Wednesday, UN chief Antonio Guterres’s spokesman was asked whether the secretary-general condoned such “cowardly” behaviour.

“He does not share your analysis and the adjectives used in describing Madame Bachelet’s work,”  Stephane Dujarric told reporters. 

“He fully respects the independence of the Office of the High Commissioner and the work of the High Commissioner.”

Bachelet released a departing video on Wednesday in which she said the world was at a critical juncture, with shrinking space for debate, often coupled with attacks on rights defenders.

She did not reference the Xinjiang report but said: “That’s the essence of human rights work: doing the hard job of putting the finger where it hurts.”

“The journey to defend human rights never ends.” 

– ‘Better late than never’ –

In May, Bachelet concluded a rare six-day visit to China that took her to Xinjiang.

During her visit, she had urged Beijing to avoid “arbitrary and indiscriminate” measures in the region.

But rights groups criticised her for a perceived lack of firmness. They said she had capitulated to a stage-managed tour of Xinjiang orchestrated by Beijing.

Human Rights Watch said the report would help to show that no state is above the law.

“Better late than never,” HRW’s China director Sophie Richardson told AFP. “If this does in fact happen, it will be a watershed moment.”

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US officials Wednesday authorized updated Covid-19 vaccinations by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech that specifically target the latest strains of the Omicron variant, hoping to contain a new wave of feared contagions this winter.

The two new booster shots are approved for people age 12 and above for the Pfizer shot and 18 and older for Moderna, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said in a statement.

This new generation of so-called “bivalent” vaccines protects against both the original strain of Covid and the BA.4 and BA.5 lineages — the subvariants of Omicron which account for about 90 percent of all new cases in the United States.

“Although the current Covid-19 surge is waning overall, it’s predicated that we’ll enter yet another surge as we spend more time indoors later this fall and winter,” FDA Commissioner Robert Califf told reporters.

“These update boosters present us with an opportunity to get ahead” of the curve, he said.

While the intense focus on coronavirus has largely faded from daily life for Americans, the United States still records some 80,000 new cases — and 400 deaths — from Covid every day.

Earlier this summer the US health department announced it had purchased 105 million doses from Pfizer and 66 million from Moderna for use over the fall and winter.

The vaccines must still receive a recommendation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the nation’s health protection agency, before injections can begin.

An independent panel of experts is scheduled to be convened by the CDC on Thursday to discuss the updates. 

– Low booster uptake –

The two companies indicated their updated vaccines could be available for distribution in the United States as early as next week.

“Receiving a booster that specifically targets the Omicron BA.4/.5 variant… is an important public health measure that people can take to help protect themselves,” Moderna chief executive Stephane Bancel said in a statement.

Many Americans will need convincing to take the new shots, as how only about half of those eligible have received a first booster dose.

The vaccines currently in circulation target the initial strain of the virus that first appeared in Wuhan, China. They have gradually proven to be less effective against the variants that have appeared over time, due to rapid evolution of the virus. 

The FDA still recommends people get the original vaccine in order to receive “a foundation of that basic immune response,” Califf said.

In contrast to the Alpha and Delta variants, which eventually waned, Omicron and its subvariants have come to dominate infections worldwide in 2022.

Pfizer and Moderna have also filed for approval of their updated vaccines with the European Medicines Agency.

For many in the West, Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union who has died at the age of 91, is worth applauding for his role in ending the Cold War.

But in some countries that spent years under Soviet rule, he is nothing more than another Russian imperialist who used force to deter nations seeking independence in the early 1990s.

Lithuanian psychologist Robertas Povilaitis, who lost his father during Moscow’s crackdown on the Baltic state’s independence drive, said Gorbachev’s glorification “grates on my ears”.

“To me, this seems one-sided and inadequate,” the 45-year-old told AFP on Wednesday, a day after Gorbachev’s death. 

Povilaitis considers Gorbachev personally responsible for the 1991 deadly Soviet assault that killed his father and 13 other civilians and wounded more than 700 others.

In 2019, a Lithuanian court convicted dozens of Soviet-era officials of war crimes but the country’s prosecutors have refused to investigate Gorbachev, who was in power at the time.

The refusal has angered those seeking justice for the crackdown and this year Povilaitis and a few others initiated a civil case against Gorbachev.

The civil lawsuit states that Gorbachev had control of the Soviet military, but failed to stop the “international crime” against Lithuanians seeking freedom after 50 years of Soviet occupation.

“He participated in very serious crimes, carried them out, organised them, gave orders,” Povilaitis said.

– ‘He was a criminal’ –

He expressed disappointment in the response of some politicians to his death, including European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen’s praise of Gorbachev as a “trusted and respected leader”.

“Even though Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are full-fledged members of the EU, she doesn’t have enough empathy or understanding that this person participated in organising the slaughter of current EU citizens,” Povilaitis said.

Lithuanian Defence Minister Arvydas Anusauskas for his part condemned Gorbachev.

“He was a criminal who ordered a ruthless crackdown on peaceful protests in Vilnius, Tbilisi, Almaty, Baku and other cities. There was no remorse,” Arvydas Anusauskas wrote on Facebook.

“Such is the memory we are left with, even though we should never speak ill of the dead — but not this time,” he added.

Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said “Lithuanians will not glorify Gorbachev”.

“We will never forget the simple fact that his army murdered civilians to prolong his regime’s occupation of our country,” he said on Twitter.

“His soldiers fired on our unarmed protestors and crushed them under his tanks. That is how we will remember him.”

Back home in South Carolina, “Rockstar” was doing a bit of gardening. Today he’s scrabbling around in the trenches with a handful of foreign fighters as Ukraine stages an offensive to retake Russian-held areas.

Some 15 kilometres (nine miles) from the frontline, the lanky 26-year-old is roaming the streets of a Ukrainian village looking for cigarettes.

Despite the curly mullet that earned him his “Rockstar” nickname, Gideon Rinehardt spent four years serving with the US National Guard.

And that experience is probably what made him worthy of joining what he calls the “very special forces” where he’s now serving under a Ukrainian command alongside two other Americans, a Briton, a Frenchman and a Finn.

Getting there was a funny story, he says, recalling how he showed up at a recruitment centre in the western region of Lviv to join the International Legion for the Defence of Ukraine (ILDU). 

“I’m not in great shape but I was still the best one there. So they asked me: do you want to join the normal army or do you want to be a badass?” he told AFP. 

“I’ve never been with the Special Forces, so put me with the normal people,” he told them. 

“But they still sent me here.”

– ‘Pretty intense’ –

Currently they are staying near a still-inhabited village in the southern Mykolaiv region, their barracks full of weaponry, from Czech assault rifles to anti-tank missiles. 

With his comrades out getting supplies in Mykolaiv, the nearest city, Rinehardt is killing time listening to some Def Leppard heavy metal. 

Other volunteers with the ILDU, which was created at the start of the war after an international appeal by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, have complained about being badly equipped.

But Rinehardt says the Ukrainians are treating them “very well”.

Before joining in July, he was back in South Carolina “doing some gardening”, he says, without elaborating. 

Since then, it’s been pretty intense, he says. 

“It is a lot of moving in the trenches and into areas that we think the Russians are going to take.”

“There has been a couple of times when they shoot at us and we shoot back. I don’t know if I have killed anyone out here. I try not to think about it.”

– ‘This is trench warfare’ –

Many foreigners weren’t ready for this type of fight, he says. 

“Nothing can prepare you for this war. Some are like, ‘I went to Iraq, I went to Afghanistan’, but this is completely different.

“This is trench warfare, like in World War I, and some Russian soldiers are awfully good at it.”

Ukraine this week launched a counter-offensive to retake southern areas held by Russia, notably around Kherson city and the region of the same name. 

In a town near the frontline, the streets are buzzing with soldiers moving to and from the battlefield.

Some are waiting for a repair truck by an armoured vehicle that overheated. Others, just back from the front, are sitting in the shade under some trees.

“We really pushed them back yesterday,” smiles one soldier with a Ukrainian trident tattooed on his arm, who says his name is Victor. 

But his commanding officer, an Afghan war veteran, is more prudent, warning the battle to retake Kherson will be “long and difficult”. 

Although the foreign fighters are not taking part in the offensive itself, Rinehardt is pleased Ukraine has gone on the offensive. 

“I think we do need to take initiative. That’s the best option right now.”

He decided to join up after being “disgusted” by the atrocities he saw on cable television.

Over the next two months, he’ll have to decide whether or not he will stay longer — and that depends on whether he receives winter gear. 

Despite not speaking a word of Ukrainian, he says he’s careful to maintain good relationships with residents of the village where he is staying.

“This is a moral war, a war of public opinion. We need to behave respectfully. We’re going to leave, and they’re going to stay.”

Top secret documents found at Donald Trump’s Florida home were “likely concealed” to obstruct an FBI probe into the former president’s potential mishandling of classified materials, the Department of Justice said in an explosive new court filing.

The filing released late Tuesday provides the most detailed account yet of the motivation for the raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate — which was triggered by a review of highly classified records that he had previously surrendered to authorities.

Before the raid, the FBI uncovered “multiple sources of evidence” showing that “classified documents” remained at Mar-a-Lago, the filing says, despite the assertion by Trump’s representatives that all sensitive materials had been handed over.

The filing made clear that prosecutors are seeking to determine whether Trump or anyone in his immediate orbit acted criminally to prevent federal agents from retrieving classified documents.

“The government also developed evidence that government records were likely concealed and removed from the Storage Room (at Trump’s estate) and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation,” the filing adds.

When agents conducted their court-ordered search on August 8, they found material so sensitive that “even the FBI counterintelligence personnel and DOJ attorneys conducting the review required additional clearances before they were permitted to review certain documents,” it says.

In total, the filing says, agents recovered more than 100 documents with classification markings, in 13 boxes or containers, during the raid.

In a striking image sure to reverberate around Washington, the filing included a photograph of color-coded documents spread out over a carpet, marked “SECRET” and “TOP SECRET.”

Trump fired back Wednesday at the photo’s release in a post on his Truth Social network.

“Terrible the way the FBI, during the Raid of Mar-a-Lago, threw documents haphazardly all over the floor (perhaps pretending it was me that did it!), and then started taking pictures of them for the public to see,” he wrote. 

“Thought they wanted them kept Secret? Lucky I Declassified.”

– ‘Delayed access’ –

Trump, who is weighing another White House run in 2024, has accused the Justice Department under Democratic President Joe Biden of conducting a “witch hunt” and said the judge “should never have allowed the break-in of my home.”

Trump has taken legal action to seek the appointment of an independent party, or “special master,” to screen the seized files for materials protected by personal privilege.

The government’s filing argues that such an appointment, which would potentially block investigators’ access to the documents, is “unnecessary and would significantly harm important governmental interests, including national security interests.”

The Justice Department said it provided the detailed background on the build-up to the raid “to correct the incomplete and inaccurate narrative” set forth by Trump’s lawyers.

Its investigation began after the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) received 15 boxes of records in January that had been improperly removed from the White House and taken to Mar-a-Lago.

According to the affidavit used to justify the raid, sensitive national defense information was among the “highly classified” records surrendered at that time, including 67 documents marked as confidential, 92 as secret and 25 as top secret.

In its filing, the Justice Department says “the former president delayed the FBI’s access to the fifteen boxes” once they had been surrendered to NARA.

The Mar-a-Lago search warrant, personally approved by Attorney General Merrick Garland, authorized the FBI to access the “45 office” — a reference to the 45th US president’s private office — and storage rooms.

The extraordinary search was partly based on suspicions of violations of the US Espionage Act related to the illegal retention of sensitive defense documents, the warrant showed.

Tuesday’s filing detailed how FBI agents in a previous operation traveled to Mar-a-Lago on June 3 and took into custody several documents turned over by a Trump custodian — who provided “sworn certification” that they represented the last of the material.

Democratic congressman Adam Schiff, who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, said the actions outlined in the brief were “reckless in the extreme” and showed “deliberate” deception.

In addition to investigations in New York into his business practices, Trump faces legal scrutiny for his efforts to overturn results of the 2020 election, and for the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol by his supporters.

Trump was impeached for a historic second time by the House of Representatives after the Capitol riot — he was charged with inciting an insurrection — but was acquitted by the Senate.