World

Philippine Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa’s news company Rappler was ordered Wednesday to shut down, a day before President Rodrigo Duterte is due to leave office, but she vowed to keep the site running.

Ressa has been a vocal critic of Duterte and the deadly drug war he launched in 2016, triggering what media advocates say is a grinding series of criminal charges, probes and online attacks against her and Rappler.

The latest blow was delivered by the Philippine Securities and Exchange Commission. 

In a statement Wednesday, it confirmed the “revocation of the certificates of incorporation” of Rappler for violating “constitutional and statutory restrictions on foreign ownership in mass media”.

Rappler said the decision “effectively confirmed the shutdown” of the company and vowed to appeal, describing the proceedings as “highly irregular”.

But Ressa was characteristically defiant, vowing the news site would continue to operate as they followed the legal process.

“We continue to work, it is business as usual,” Ressa told reporters, adding “we can only hope for the best” under Duterte’s successor Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

Rappler has had to fight for survival as Duterte’s government accused it of violating a constitutional ban on foreign ownership in securing funding, as well as tax evasion. 

It has also been accused of cyber libel — a new criminal law introduced in 2012, the same year Rappler was founded.

Duterte has attacked the website by name, calling it a “fake news outlet”, over a story about one of his closest aides.

The news portal is accused of allowing foreigners to take control of its website through its parent Rappler Holdings’ issuance of “depositary receipts”.

Under the constitution, investment in media is reserved for Filipinos or Filipino-controlled entities.

The case springs from the 2015 investment from the US-based Omidyar Network, which was established by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.  

Omidyar later transferred its investment in Rappler to the site’s local managers to stave off efforts by Duterte to shut it down.

Ressa, who is also a US citizen, and Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October for their efforts to “safeguard freedom of expression”.

Ressa is fighting at least seven court cases, including an appeal against a conviction in a cyber libel case, for which she is on bail and faces up to six years in prison. 

Rappler faces about eight cases, Ressa said.

The International Center for Journalists has urged the Philippine government to reverse its order to shut down Rappler. 

“This legal harassment not only costs Rappler time, money and energy. It enables relentless and prolific online violence designed to chill independent reporting,” ICFJ said in a statement posted on Twitter. 

Marcos Jr, the son of the Philippines’ former dictator who presided over widespread human rights abuses and corruption, takes over from Duterte on Thursday.

Activists fear Marcos Jr’s presidency could worsen human rights and freedom of speech in the country.

The European Union approved a plan to end the sale of vehicles with combustion engines by 2035 in Europe, the 27-member bloc announced early Wednesday, in a bid to reduce CO2 emissions to zero. 

The measure, first proposed in July 2021, will mean a de facto halt to sales of petrol and diesel cars as well as light commercial vehicles and a complete shift to electric engines in the European Union from 2035. 

The plan is intended to help achieve the continent’s climate objectives, in particular, carbon neutrality by 2050.

At the request of countries including Germany and Italy, the EU-27 also agreed to consider a future green light for the use of alternative technologies such as synthetic fuels or plug-in hybrids.

While approval would be tied to achieving the complete elimination of greenhouse gas emissions, the technologies have been contested by environmental NGOs.

Environment ministers meeting in Luxembourg also approved a five-year extension of the exemption from CO2 obligations granted to so-called “niche” manufacturers, or those producing fewer than 10,000 vehicles per year, until the end of 2035. 

The clause, sometimes referred to as the “Ferrari amendment”, will benefit luxury brands in particular.

These measures must now be negotiated with members of the European Parliament. 

“This is a big challenge for our automotive industry,” acknowledged French Minister of Ecological Transition Agnes Pannier-Runacher, who chaired Tuesday night’s meeting. 

But she said it was a “necessity” in the face of competition from China and the United States, which have bet heavily on electric vehicles seen as the future of the industry. 

These decisions will “allow a planned and accompanied transition”, the minister said. 

– Openness to synthetic fuels –

Europe’s automotive industry, which is already investing heavily in the move to electric vehicles, fears the social impact of a too-rapid transition. 

“The overwhelming majority of car manufacturers have chosen electric cars,” said Frans Timmermans, the EU Commission Vice President in charge of the European Green Deal, at a press conference. 

He affirmed the EU body’s willingness to be open-minded to other technologies — like synthetic fuels, which are also referred to as e-fuels. 

“We are technology neutral. What we want are zero-emission cars,” he explained. 

“At the moment, e-fuels do not seem a realistic solution, but if manufacturers can prove otherwise in the future, we will be open.” 

The technology of synthetic fuels, currently under study, consists of producing fuel from CO2 from industrial activities using low-carbon electricity, in a circular economy approach. 

Like the oil industry, the automotive sector has high hopes for these new fuels, which would extend the use of internal combustion engines now threatened by the emergence of completely electric vehicles. 

But environmental organisations object to the use of this technology in cars, as it is considered both expensive and energy-consuming.

The synthetic-fuelled engines also emit as much nitrogen oxide (NOx) as their fossil fuel equivalents, they say.

Cars are the main mode of transport for Europeans and account for just under 15 percent of total CO2 emissions in the EU. It is also one of the main gases responsible for global warming. 

In response to manufacturers’ concerns about insufficient consumer demand for 100 percent electric cars, the Commission has recommended a major expansion of charging stations. 

“Along the main roads in Europe, there must be charging points every 60 kilometres (37 miles),” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last year. 

Manufacturers regularly complain about the lack of such infrastructure, especially in southern and eastern European countries.

In one of Saudi artist Ahmed Mater’s best-known works, a silhouette of a gas pump morphs into a man holding a gun to his head –- a clear critique of oil’s damaging influence. 

Yet for several years, most Saudis couldn’t see the piece, titled “Evolution of Man”, as local curators deemed it too sensitive to show in the oil-reliant kingdom.

Its inclusion in a recent exhibition in the capital Riyadh is just one sign of changing times.

With Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler, eager to rebrand conservative Saudi Arabia as a global arts destination, officials are heaping previously unheard-of opportunities on Mater and his peers.

They unveiled the latest on Monday: a plan to feature Mater and another politically minded Saudi artist, Manal AlDowayan, in a series of permanent installations in the deserts outside Al-Ula, a budding tourist magnet in the northwestern Medina region.

To critics of the Saudi royal family, such projects smack of “artwashing”, an attempt to launder the image of a country notorious for silencing dissidents, most notably slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

But for artists like Mater, the state backing is a welcome relief after years of straining to reach Saudi audiences and cultivate a vibrant domestic arts scene.

“I usually believe in creating a grassroots movement that will be organic, but what if there is top-down support for this? Even better,” he told AFP.

“That’s the change. That’s the new thing.”

– ‘Valley of the arts’ –

The project in Al-Ula –- known as Wadi AlFann, or “Valley of the Arts” -– is ultimately meant to cover 65 square kilometres (16,000 acres) of Saudi desert with new examples of “land art”, the movement that sought to bring art out of galleries and into nature.

Besides Mater and AlDowayan, contributors include land art giants like Hungarian-American Agnes Denes, who in the 1980s famously planted and harvested two acres of wheat just blocks from Wall Street.

It is part of a broader goal to transform Al-Ula, famed for its ancient Nabataean tombs dotted amid sandstone mountains and wadis, into a top-tier arts hub, complete with luxury eco-resorts and a posh theatre covered in mirrored panels.

The Wadi AlFann works “are on a scale and ambition, and they have such vision behind them, that I think people will want to come for many, many generations to visit them”, said curator Iwona Blazwick, former director of London’s Whitechapel Gallery.

AlDowayan, one of the Saudi contributors, told AFP that until recently her work had been seen more frequently outside the kingdom than within it, though she dismissed the notion that this had anything to do with censorship.

“I was talking about very tough subjects when it was really restrictive here, and I was fine. They published me in every single newspaper. I’ve never been censored,” she said.

The nature of visual artists’ work gives them more space to speak out than Saudi activists might enjoy, said Eman Alhussein, non-resident fellow with the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.

“Artists are able to express themselves more freely because their artwork can be interpreted in different ways,” she said.

That seems especially true these days, as Saudi authorities lean on the arts to help soften their austere reputation.

After two decades of showing largely for foreigners, AlDowayan is now basking in a surge of domestic attention.

“I’m being exhibited constantly here,” she said. “I’m being rediscovered by my people, my community. They used to follow me on Instagram. Now they can actually go and see the artworks.” 

– Legacy of restrictions –

Mater, too, has had mostly positive experiences with Saudi authorities.

Yet he has also seen the limits on free expression in Saudi Arabia through the case of his childhood friend Ashraf Fayadh, a fellow artist who has been behind bars for nearly a decade.

Fayadh, a Palestinian poet living in the kingdom, was charged with apostasy in 2014 after a Saudi citizen accused him of promoting atheism.

A court sentenced him to death in 2015, though his sentence was reduced to eight years on appeal.

Mater sees Fayadh’s case as a throwback to a less open period and does not think it would play out the same way today.

Nevertheless, “the case is still very important because Ashraf has to come out”, Mater said, adding that he hopes his friend will be released soon.

In the meantime, Mater is pressing on with his politically charged work.

His project for Wadi AlFann involves building tunnels that visitors can enter. Once inside, their hologram-like images will be projected above the dunes — an effect akin to a mirage.

The idea is to use a monument to centre ordinary people, a concept that doesn’t necessarily jibe with monarchical rule.

“Usually sculpture is about landmarks of power,” Mater said.

“And what I’m talking about here is, the power is the people themselves.”

A total of 20 people have been tried over the November 2015 attacks by the Islamic State group on the Bataclan concert hall and other targets around Paris, with the verdicts expected on Wednesday.

Only 14 of them have appeared in person, with the rest missing or presumed to be dead. 

– Salah Abdeslam, aged 32 –

Once a pot-smoking party-lover who grew up in the impoverished Molenbeek district of Brussels, Abdeslam turned to radical Islam along with his brother Brahim, who blew himself up in a bar during the Paris attacks.

The only surviving attacker gave his profession as an “Islamic State fighter” and recounted religious verses in his first appearance in court in September, but his provocative early behaviour has faded from view.

He broke down in tears in April and apologised to victims, asking them to “hate me with moderation.”

He has defended himself by saying he never killed anyone after alleging he backed out of his mission to blow himself up in a bar. 

Prosecutors say his suicide belt was simply defective.

He went on the run for four months after the attacks and was involved in a shootout with police in Brussels, for which he has already been sentenced to 20 years in prison.

French prosecutors have requested a full life sentence.

His former lawyer in Belgium once described him as having “the intelligence of an empty ashtray”.

– Mohamed Abrini, aged 37 –

A childhood friend of Abdeslam and other jihadists from Molenbeek, Abrini is a school dropout and multi-convicted thief who turned to Islamic State’s ideology after his radicalised younger brother joined the group and was killed in Syria.

“It’s a duty for all Muslims to go to do jihad,” he told the court in January, justifying the attacks in Paris as a response to Western bombing against Islamic State and its now-defunct caliphate in Iraq and Syria.

At the end of the trial on Monday, the one-time bakery worker known as “brioche” to friends said it had enabled him “to put faces to the victims”. 

“I’m aware that what happened is disgusting.” 

The Belgian claimed that he backed out of the Paris attacks at the last moment, but has admitted meeting the ringleader beforehand and booking cars and safe-houses for the other jihadists.

He took part in separate suicide bombings that struck Brussels in 2016, though he decided not to detonate himself.

Prosecutors asked for a life sentence with 22 years as a minimum term.

– Osama Krayem, 29, and Sofian Ayari, 28 –

A Swede of Syrian and Palestinian origin, Krayem allegedly fled Paris with Abdeslam after the attacks.

The long-haired jihadist was identified in a notorious IS video showing a Jordanian pilot being burned alive in a cage, thanks to a scar on his eyebrow.

He remained silent for the trial, giving a written statement in January which read: “At the start I thought I would express myself. Then, I saw how the hearings were going and I lost all hope.” 

He is suspected of planning another attack at Amsterdam’s airport along with Ayari, a Tunisian who travelled to Syria to join Islamic State.  

Ayari, who was arrested along with Abdeslam, began to explain his past with IS after being “touched” by the testimony of a victim’s mother in February, but then refused to answer any more questions.

Prosecutors sought life terms for them.

– Mohamed Bakkali, 35 –

Arrested two weeks after the Paris bloodbath, the Belgian-Moroccan national is suspected of providing logistical help such as hiring safe houses and cars, providing fake identity papers and helping repatriate IS fighters from Syria.

He was already sentenced to 25 years in prison in Belgium over his role in an attack on a high-speed Paris-bound train that left two passengers injured.

He was handed over to French authorities on the condition that he returned to serve his sentence in Belgium.

He offered apologies to victims on Monday, the last day of hearings.

– Muhammed Usman, 29, and Adel Haddidi, 34 –  

Usman from Pakistan and Haddidi from Algeria were arrested in Greece as they travelled with two jihadists who went on to blow themselves up outside the national sports stadium in Paris.

The pair were attempting to disguise themselves as refugees in the mass of people heading from Syria to Europe via Turkey and intended to take part in the attacks on Paris, prosecutors said.

“I’m working on myself. In the future I would like to do something good with my life,” Haddidi said in his final statement. 

– Yassine Atar, 35 –

He is the younger brother of the man presumed to have overseen the whole operation in Syria: Oussama Atar, a veteran jihadist.

Prosecutors detailed his meetings with key suspects and his family links to the Islamic State cell in Brussels, as well as how a key to a hideout was found at his home. 

“I hope you’ve understood that I have absolutely nothing to do with Oussama Atar and nothing to do with these attacks which I condemn firmly,” he said in his final statement.

The court heard earlier how Belgian authorities had granted a passport to his older brother in 2013 despite his known links to radical Islamism — a possible attempt to recruit him as an informer. 

The older Atar is also on trial but is presumed dead in Syria or Iraq.

– The ‘friends’ –

Five friends and acquaintances of Abdeslam and Abrini are on trial, charged over assistance they gave to the main suspects.

Mohammed Amri, 33, Hamza Attou, 28, and Ali Oulkadi, 37, went to fetch Abdeslam from Paris in the aftermath of the attacks, but denied knowing about his involvement.

Haddad Asufi, 36, and Abdellah Chouaa, 41, were tried for alleged help they gave to Bakkali and Abrini.

– Others –

Ali El Haddad Asufi, 36: a Belgian-Moroccan suspected of supplying weapons.

Farid Kharkhach, 39: a Belgian-Moroccan suspected of supplying fake identity papers. 

Ahmad Alkhald, age unknown: also known as Omar Darif, a Syrian, presumed dead, accused of making the suicide belts.

Jean-Michel and Fabien Clain, 38 and 41: notorious jihadist brothers from southwest France who featured in an IS video claiming responsibility for the attacks. Presumed dead in Syria. 

Ahmed Dahmani, 33: a friend of Abdeslam wanted for providing logistical help. In jail in Turkey.

Obeida Aref Dibo, age unknown: a Syrian IS member, presumed dead, thought to have been a planner.

burs-adp/sjw/cdw/dva

Former US president Donald Trump angrily lunged at his Secret Service driver and grabbed at the steering wheel of his limousine in a bid to join the crowd as it marched on the Capitol on the day of the deadly insurrection, an aide testified Tuesday.

In some of the most explosive testimony so far to the House committee probing the violence, Cassidy Hutchinson, an assistant to Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows, said the president had demanded to be taken to the Capitol after his speech near the White House.

Trump became irate when he was told that it was impossible for security reasons, and he tried to wrestle the Secret Service for control of his official car, Hutchinson testified.

“I’m the effing president, take me up to the Capitol now,” Trump said, according to Hutchinson, who testified that the story was relayed to her by another administration official.

Trump, apparently watching the televised hearing, attempted to discredit Hutchinson in real time in a multiple-post rant on his social media network, dismissing the episode as a “fake story” and calling the hearing a “kangaroo court.”

US media later reported that the Secret Service agents involved may be willing to testify and deny Hutchinson account.

The US Secret Service did not respond to AFP’s request for comment.

The congressional panel has spent a year investigating the January 6, 2021 riot that temporarily halted the certifying by Congress of the presidential election result.

It has now held six public hearings to outline its initial finding — that Trump led a criminal conspiracy to overturn his defeat to Joe Biden that led to the violence.

Hutchinson was a central figure in the administration and able to offer the committee its first blow-by-blow account of activity inside the White House.

She testified that Trump and some of his top lieutenants were aware of the possibility of violence — contradicting claims that the assault was spontaneous and had nothing to do with the administration.

– ‘Things might get real, real bad’ –

Hutchinson said she recalled Meadows saying four days before the insurrection: “Things might get real, real bad on January 6.”

Hutchinson had sought out her boss, she said, after a White House meeting involving Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani. As they were leaving, Giuliani asked her if she was “excited” for January 6. 

When she asked what Giuliani meant, Hutchinson recalled that he “responded something to the effect of, ‘We’re going to the Capitol.'” 

“‘It’s going to be great. The president’s going to be there. He’s going to look powerful… Talk to the chief about it. He knows about it.'”

She told Meadows what Giuliani had said, she testified.

“He didn’t look up from his phone and said something to the effect of, ‘There’s a lot going on, Cass, but I don’t know. Things might get real, real bad on January 6,'” Hutchinson told the hearing.

Meadows and Trump were aware of the possibility of violence, including that members of the pro-Trump mob were armed when they gathered near the White House on the day of the riot, Hutchinson said.  

– Armed protesters –

When she told Meadows violence had erupted, Meadows “almost had a lack of reaction,” Hutchinson said.

Vice chair Liz Cheney said the committee had obtained police reports that people at the Trump rally on the Ellipse had knives, Tasers, pepper spray and blunt objects that could be used as weapons.

Police transmissions played at the hearing showed that others outside the rally had firearms including AR-15 semi-automatic rifles.

Hutchinson described an exchange between Meadows and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone soon after the rioters broke into the US Capitol, during which the lawyer said Trump needed to call off the mob chanting for his vice president Mike Pence to be hanged.

“He doesn’t want to do anything, Pat,” Hutchinson recalls Meadows telling Cipollone. Trump “thinks Mike deserves it,” Hutchinson recalled Meadows adding.

Meadows, who asked for a pardon related to January 6, refused to testify before the panel since handing over thousands of text messages and other documents in the early stages of the investigation.

The latest hearing was announced at last minute amid concerns for Hutchinson’s security. Cheney suggested that that former Trump officials were trying to intimidate witnesses.