World

A man who held several people hostage at an Apple store in Amsterdam demanded 200 million euros ($230 million) in cryptocurrency before he was taken to hospital “seriously injured”, police said Wednesday.  

The man, identified as a 27-year-old from Amsterdam, entered the Apple store carrying a firearm in the busy Leidseplein neighbourhood late Tuesday afternoon, sparking a tense five-hour long ordeal. 

The camouflage-wearing assailant held one man hostage, a 44-year-old British national, according to reports, while four others hid in a closet.   

It was initially feared the suspect was holding several people hostage, but he was reportedly not aware that several more people were in hiding in the building. 

In an overnight press conference, police chief Frank Paauw said the suspected demanded 200 million in cryptocurrency before he was eventually apprehended by police. 

The dramatic ordeal finally ended around 10:30 (2130 GMT) when the hostage asked for water. He left the building and then ran, prompting the suspect to chase after him. 

The suspect was then hit hard by a police car before a robot checked him for explosives as he lay on the road, painted by laser sights from police snipers. 

“A car from the special forces reacted very adequately and alertly,” Paauw said hailing the hostage for his bravery. 

“The hostage has played a hero role. In a few split seconds he escaped this hostage situation, otherwise it would have been an even longer night and nasty night.”

Around 70 people in total were evacuated from the building and the area around the store was cordoned off.

The suspect was taken to hospital “seriously injured”, Paauw said, and investigations into the incident are ongoing. 

Police were called at about 5:30 pm (1630 GMT) on Tuesday about an armed man in the Apple store, and images suggested he might have been wearing an explosive vest. 

Several special police units were deployed with the first to arrive targeted by an automatic weapon, Paauw said.

He later tweeted the man did not have explosives on him. 

All Apple stores across the Netherlands were closed Wednesday, and the site of Tuesday’s hostage taking will remain closed Thursday, the company said. 

Leidseplein is popular with tourists and known for its lively bars and cafes. The area was quickly closed and the restaurants, bars and theatres were shut after the hostage taking.

China on Wednesday dismissed comparisons between the Ukraine crisis and its own claim over Taiwan, after the self-ruled island’s president said evidence of Russian aggression was being used to hurt Taiwanese morale.

Democratic Taiwan has watched the Ukraine situation closely as it lives under constant threat of a Chinese invasion, with Beijing claiming sovereignty over the island and vowing to seize it one day — by force if necessary.

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen said Wednesday “external forces” were “attempting to manipulate the situation in Ukraine and affect the morale in Taiwan’s society”, and urged the government to be “more vigilant against cognitive warfare”.

Beijing said any comparison showed a “lack of the most basic understanding of the history of the Taiwan issue”.

“Taiwan, of course, is not Ukraine,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a regular press conference.

“Taiwan has always been an inalienable part of China’s territory. This is an irrefutable historical and legal fact,” she said, blasting “unwise” Taiwanese authorities for “making the Ukraine issue into a hot topic”.

Earlier, Tsai said: “Our government condemns Russia’s violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty… and urges all parties to continue to resolve the disputes through peaceful and rational means.”

Beijing has ramped up military, diplomatic and economic pressure on Taiwan since Tsai came to power in 2016, as she rejects the stance that the island is Chinese territory.

Taiwan’s defence ministry said last year that China had launched a disinformation campaign aimed at seizing the island “without a fight”.

Tsai on Wednesday also told national security and military units to remain vigilant and step up surveillance of military activities around Taiwan.

The final quarter of 2021 saw a massive spike in incursions by Chinese warplanes into Taiwan’s air defence identification zone.

Last year, Taiwan recorded 969 such incursions, according to a database compiled by AFP — more than double the roughly 380 in 2020.

Beijing has trod a cautious line on Ukraine but also offered growing support to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The two powers signed a joint statement this month, agreeing on multiple foreign policy goals including no further expansion of NATO and that Taiwan is an “inalienable part of China”.

Chinese officials have also repeatedly sided with Russia in blaming the West for the tensions over Ukraine, accusing them of a “Cold War mentality” while describing Moscow’s security concerns as “reasonable”.

Ukraine mobilised its military reserve Wednesday and urged its citizens to leave Russian territory as Moscow sharpened its demands, increasing fears of all-out war.

Kremlin chief President Vladimir Putin has defied an avalanche of international sanctions to put his forces on stand-by to occupy two rebel-held areas of eastern Ukraine.

In response, Kyiv’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has put Ukraine’s more than 200,000 reservists on notice that they will receive summons to return to their units.

Ukraine’s security council also on Wednesday called for a state of emergency in the country — a measure that still needs to be formally approved by parliament.

Meanwhile, Ukraine urged its approximately three million citizens living in Russia to leave, as the crisis deepened despite intense international pressure on Moscow, backed by new economic sanctions.

Western capitals say Russia has amassed 150,000 troops in combat formations on Ukraine’s borders with Russia, Belarus and Russian-occupied Crimean and on warships in the Black Sea.

Ukraine has around 200,000 military personnel and Wednesday’s call up could see up to 250,000 reservists aged between 18 and 60 receive their mobilisation papers. 

Moscow’s total forces are much larger — around a million active duty personnel — and have been modernised and re-armed in recent years.

– High cost of war –

But Ukraine has received advanced anti-tank weapons and some drones from NATO members. More have been promised as the allies try to deter a Russian attack or at least make it costly.

Shelling has intensified between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatists, and civilians living near the front are fearful.

Dmitry Maksimenko, a 27-year-old coal miner from government-held Krasnogorivka, told AFP that he was shocked when his wife came to tell him that Putin had recognised two Russian-backed separatist enclaves.

“She said: ‘Have you heard the news?’. How could I have known? There’s no electricity never mind internet. I don’t know what is going to happen next, but to be honest, I’m afraid,” he said.

Washington and Britain say Russia’s force is poised to strike Ukraine and trigger the most serious war in Europe for decades, but Putin says he is open to negotiation — within limits.

Russia has demanded that Ukraine be forbidden from ever joining the NATO alliance and is seeking to roll back the advance of Western influence in eastern Europe since the Cold War.

“The interests of Russia, the security of our citizens, are non-negotiable for us,” Putin declared, in a video address to mark the Defender of the Fatherland Day, a public holiday.

On Tuesday, the Federation Council, Russia’s upper house, gave him unanimous approval to deploy troops to two breakaway Ukrainian regions now recognised by Moscow as independent, Donetsk and Lugansk. 

Russia said it had established diplomatic relations “at the level of embassies” with the separatist statelets, which broke away from Kyiv in 2014 in a conflict that cost more than 14,000 lives.

Moscow also said it would evacuate diplomatic personnel from Ukraine to “protect their lives.”

Speaking to journalists, Putin on Tuesday set out a number of stringent conditions if the West wanted to de-escalate the crisis, saying Ukraine should drop its NATO ambition and become neutral.

US President Joe Biden later announced tough new sanctions against Russia for “beginning” an invasion of Ukraine, but said there was still time to avoid war.

Japan and Australia followed suit early Wednesday with their own stringent penalties for Moscow and individuals connected with the aggression against Ukraine.

Biden announced what he called the “first tranche” of sanctions, including steps to starve Russia of financing and target financial institutions and the country’s “elites”.

But he left the door open to a final effort at diplomacy to avert a full-scale Russian invasion.

“There’s no question that Russia is the aggressor, so we’re clear-eyed about the challenges we’re facing,” the US leader said.

Biden’s address followed a wave of sanctions announced by Britain and the European Union, after Putin recognised the self-declared Donetsk and Lugansk separatist regions this week.

Germany also announced it was halting certification of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia.

– ‘Full-scale invasion’ –

Kremlin officials have responded scornfully to the sanctions, and observers point out that energy-rich Russia has huge reserves of $639 billion and an $182-billion sovereign wealth fund to see it through a crisis.   

Putin’s plans remain unclear, but Western officials have been warning for weeks he has been preparing an all-out invasion of Ukraine, a move that could spark a catastrophic war in Europe. 

The White House signalled it no longer believes Russia is serious about avoiding conflict, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken cancelling a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov scheduled for Thursday.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Putin said that Moscow had recognised the independence of Ukraine’s separatist regions within their administrative borders, including territory still controlled by Kyiv — raising the spectre of a clash. 

He added that Western-brokered peace agreements on Ukraine’s conflict no longer existed and stressed that the deployment of Russian troops would “depend on the specific situation… on the ground.”

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance had “every indication” that Moscow “continues to plan for a full-scale attack on Ukraine.” 

British foreign minister Liz Truss told Sky News it was “likely” that Putin would “follow through on his plan for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine”.

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The world should provide millions of doses of Covid-19 vaccines to North Korea, where “draconian” anti-pandemic measures are worsening an already-severe food crisis, a UN human rights expert said Wednesday.

The impoverished nation has been behind a rigid self-imposed coronavirus blockade since early 2020 to protect itself from the pandemic, with the economy suffering and trade all but stopped.

The country’s “draconian” anti-Covid measures, including border closures and further limits on domestic freedom of movement, have worsened the food crisis, Tomas Ojea Quintana, UN special rapporteur on human rights, said.

Crucial domestic market activity has been cut off, and international aid workers have been forced to depart, with humanitarian operations all but halted, he said, adding that vulnerable populations were at risk of starvation.

The international community should “agree on a strategy to provide the DPRK with 60 million doses of vaccination to cover at least two shots for the entire population,” Quintana said at a press briefing in Seoul Wednesday.

Vaccinations are “the key to opening the DPRK’s border… and bringing it out of isolation,” he added, using the acronym for North Korea’s official name.

North Korea has yet to confirm a single case of the novel coronavirus.

According to the World Health Organization, North Korea had by the end of 2020 conducted 13,259 Covid-19 tests, which all came back negative.

It had been due to receive more than 1.7 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine through the Covax programme last year, but rejected them due to concerns over side effects, Yonhap reported at the time.

It has also rejected offers of vaccines from allies Russia and China, local reports say.

In January, North Korea conducted a record seven weapons tests, including firing the most powerful missile since 2017, as it ignored US offers of talks.

Pyongyang is under multiple sets of international sanctions over its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.

Quintana again called for such restrictions to be eased to protect the country’s most vulnerable in the face of a severe food shortage.