World

The family of jailed British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah announced Friday they have requested a presidential pardon for him as concern for his health mounts after a months-long hunger strike.

“Attached is the text of the pardon request that I submitted today, confirming… my readiness to take all available legal methods that guarantee a solution to my brother’s crisis,” his sister Mona Seif wrote on Twitter.

It comes after the activist escalated a months-long hunger strike and stopped drinking water as the COP27 climate summit got underway in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh last Sunday.

Egypt has granted presidential pardons to a total of 766 political prisoners since the reactivation of a pardon policy in April this year, according to data compiled by Amnesty International. 

But over the same period, close to double that number have been jailed for their activism, Amnesty says.

On Thursday, the Egyptian prosecutor said the jailed dissident’s “vital signs… are normal,” and that he “is in good health and does not need to be transferred to hospital”, amid growing concerns over his health.

His sister responded at the time calling the prosecutor’s remarks a “lie”, adding that the authorities were forcibly intervening to “deny” his hunger strike “so that he won’t die”.

Abdel Fattah’s mother Laila Soueif, who has tried to access the prison where he is being held, was informed that “medical intervention was taken… with the knowledge of judicial entities”, Seif wrote on Twitter on Thursday.

US President Joe Biden made a lightning visit to Egypt Friday for the COP27 UN climate talks and raised human rights issues in a meeting with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

The White House had earlier expressed “deep concern” about Abdel Fattah, after the activist’s lawyer said he had been refused access to him, despite being authorised for such a visit by the interior ministry.

Abdel Fattah, a key figure in the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime dictator Hosni Mubarak, is serving a five-year prison sentence for “spreading false news” by sharing a Facebook post about police brutality.

President Joe Biden vowed at UN climate talks on Friday that the United States was on track to slash its carbon emissions, urging all nations to ramp up their own efforts to avert catastrophic global warming.

His speech came at the halfway point of a two-week COP27 conference in Egypt where rich polluters like the US are under pressure to finally provide the funding developing countries have been promised in the battle against climate change.

Biden touted the passage of a massive, $369 billion spending package to green the US economy as an achievement that would “shift the paradigm” for his country and the entire world.

“The climate crisis is about human security, economic security, environmental security, national security and the very life of the planet,” Biden said.

In an hours-long visit to Egypt before heading to Asia for ASEAN and G20 summits, Biden said the United States “will meet” its goal of cutting emissions 50-52 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. 

He also announced plans to step up efforts to cut methane emissions — a major contributor to global warming — by plugging fossil fuel leaks and requiring companies to act on leaks reported by credible third parties.

“To permanently bend the emissions curve, every nation needs to step up. At this gathering, we must renew and raise our climate ambitions,” he said.

“The United States has acted, everyone has to act. It’s a duty and responsibility of global leadership,” said Biden, whose administration also announced plans to require federal contractors to reduce their emissions in line with the Paris Agreement.

– Howl of protest –

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has sent energy prices soaring, has raised concerns that tackling climate change has dropped down the priority list of many countries.

“Russia’s war only enhances the urgency of the need to transition the world off its dependence on fossil fuels,” Biden said.

His 22-minute speech was briefly interrupted by a small group of demonstrators, who howled and attempted to unfurl a banner protesting fossil fuels before they were removed by UN security.

New research shows just how dauntingly hard it will be to meet the ambitious goal of capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels — requiring emissions to be slashed nearly in half by 2030.

The new study — published on Friday in the journal Earth System Science Data — found that CO2 emissions from fossil fuels are on track to rise one percent in 2022 to reach an all-time high.

Before his speech, Biden met Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on the sidelines of COP27, where he raised human rights issues with his host amid concerns over the health of jailed dissident Alaa Abdel Fattah, who is on a months-long hunger strike.

Abdel Fattah’s family later announced that they had requested a presidential pardon for him following calls for his release from a raft of Western governments, including the United States.

– Mixed reviews –

Biden’s visit to COP27 came three days after US midterm elections that have raised questions about what the result could mean for US climate policy.

His climate speech earned mix reviews from COP27 participants.

“President Biden is advancing the boldest climate agenda of any American president by far,” said Ani Dasgupta, president of the World Resources Institute.

But he said the US was “grossly underperforming” on its commitments in a $100-billion-a-year global climate funding programme to help developing nations transition to renewable energy and build resilience.

Biden has pledged to double the US contribution to $11.4 billion, but Democrats may be running out of time to honour that as control of the House of Representatives appears poised to shift to the Republicans from January in the wake of this week’s vote.

Others pointed out that the United States has previously blocked efforts to establish a “loss and damage” mechanism that would see rich polluters compensate poorer countries for the destruction from climate-induced natural disasters.

Biden did not address the “loss and damage” mechanism idea in his speech, though the United States has allowed it to be on the official COP27 agenda.

“Joe Biden comes to COP27 and makes new promises but his old promises have not even been fulfilled,” said Mohamed Dowd, founder of the Power Shift Africa think tank.

“He is like a salesman selling goods with endless small print.”

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Residents of Kherson gathered in Kyiv’s Maidan Square on Friday to celebrate the liberation of their home city — the first outpouring of joy in the capital in nearly nine months of war.

“My city, where I was born and where I’ve lived my whole life, is finally free,” said 17-year-old Nastia Stepenska, her eyes welling with tears.

“When (the Russians) arrived, it was horrible. We didn’t know what was going to happen the next day or if we’d even still be alive,” the school student said, admitting she was in a state of shock.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday that Kherson was “ours” after Russia announced the completion of its withdrawal from the regional capital, the only one Moscow had captured since its invasion began on February 24.

The city could open a gateway for Ukraine’s forces to the entire Kherson region, with access to both the Black Sea in the west and Sea of Azov in the east.

“I’ll go back when it’s possible and it’s safe,” said Stepenska. “Soon, I hope.” 

The announcement that Ukrainian forces were entering Kherson sparked a rare flurry of joy in Kyiv, music in the streets and blaring car horns.

– ‘Best surprise ever’ –

Kherson inhabitants who left for Kyiv when Russian soldiers captured their city in March began converging on Maidan Square at 7:00 pm, draped in flags, popping champagne corks and hugging each other.

“I didn’t believe it at first. I thought it would take weeks or months, a few hundred metres at a time. And in just one day, they’ve made it into Kherson. It’s the best surprise ever,” said 41-year-old Artem Lukiv.

“I told my kids, ‘That’s it. We’ve been liberated,’ and we all started crying,” he said, hugging his two children and a Ukrainian flag at the same time.

Under the square’s victory column commemorating Ukraine’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Kherson’s displaced residents belted out the national anthem in unison and wiped their tears.

Then they chanted the numbers of the first Ukrainian army brigades to enter Kherson — the first major urban hub to fall to the Russians and the first to be taken back.

“We’re really happy… Our soldiers are gods,” Lukiv said.

“We’ve been waiting for this for nine months. Kherson belongs to Ukraine and it always will.”

Crisis-struck cryptocurrency platform FTX has gone bankrupt in the United States and its chief executive Sam Bankman-Fried has resigned, it said Friday, the latest blow in a saga that has reverberated across the digital currency landscape.

The filing comes after the world’s biggest cryptocurrency platform Binance agreed to buy its rival earlier this week but backed out, leading market players to consider possible regulator responses.

FTX Group announced in a statement Friday that it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, adding it has begun an “orderly process to review and monetize assets for the benefit of all global stakeholders.”

Chapter 11 is a US mechanism allowing a company to restructure its debts under court supervision while continuing to operate.

This week’s financial chaos at FTX has seen major cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, plunge.

Bankman-Fried issued a “sincere” apology Thursday, adding FTX would do “everything we can to raise liquidity.”

The cash-strapped company added in its statement that it has appointed John J. Ray as chief executive with immediate effect.

“The immediate relief of Chapter 11 is appropriate to provide the FTX Group the opportunity to assess its situation,” said Ray in the statement.

“Stakeholders should understand that events have been fast-moving and the new team is engaged only recently.”

“Many employees of the FTX Group in various countries are expected to continue with the FTX Group and assist Mr. Ray and independent professionals in its operations during the Chapter 11 proceedings,” the statement said.

Binance agreed to buy FTX.com on Tuesday — before scrapping the takeover just a day later.

Binance chief executive Changpeng Zhao defended himself against accusations of any purposeful plot after the deal fell apart.

“FTX going down is not good for anyone in the industry. Do not view it as a win for us. User confidence is severely shaken,” he tweeted.

The platform’s collapse came as a shock even for an already turbulent industry.

Bankman-Fried, who worked as a broker on Wall Street before moving to Hong Kong in 2017, had cultivated friends in Washington and basked in glowing tributes when he stepped in to rescue other ailing crypto companies earlier in the year.

The turmoil at FTX, at one point valued at $32 billion, is a spectacular reversal of fortune for the founder and one-time cryptocurrency wunderkind.

“This is another black eye for the industry,” David Holt, a cryptocurrency industry expert at CFRA, said of FTX’s troubles. 

– Growing doubts –

Doubts had already been growing about the financial stability of FTX, despite Bankman-Fried’s good standing in Washington as a public face of crypto investing.

Attention had focused on the relationship between FTX and Alameda Research, a trading house also owned by Bankman-Fried that was taken down from the internet on Wednesday, reports said.

Specialist media site CoinDesk reported that 40 percent of Alameda’s balance sheet comprised FTX’s FTT tokens, raising concerns of a potential conflict of interest.

“We don’t know exactly what happened, but from all the reporting it looks like there was a lot of misconduct,” former US regulator Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawyer Howard Fischer said on the CNBC network Friday, predicting that some clients would sue in order to recover their investments.

The company is currently under investigation by the SEC, according to the New York Times, citing sources familiar with the matter.

The regulator, which does not usually comment on ongoing investigations, did not respond to AFP’s request for comment Friday, nor did the Department of Justice. 

Media reports suggest FTX had needed to find about $8 billion to plug a massive hole in its finances and escape bankruptcy.

Binance meanwhile axed its FTX takeover deal late on Wednesday and cited recent press reports about mismanagement of client funds and potential investigations.

Bankman-Fried, the son of Stanford Law School professors and a graduate of the elite Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has long been a vocal advocate for smoother access to the crypto market for the general public, particularly in the United States.

Kevin O’Leary, president of a venture capital firm and television personality who had invested in FTX, on Friday called for urgent regulations to safeguard the industry. 

“I lost money in the account, but I’m still going to invest on crypto,” he told CNBC. 

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday that Kherson was “ours” after Russia announced the completion of its withdrawal from the regional capital, the only one Moscow captured in nearly nine months of fighting.

“As of now, our defenders are on the outskirts of the city. But special units are already in the city,” Zelensky wrote on Telegram, posting footage apparently showing Ukrainian troops gathering with residents.

Ukraine’s parliament had published pictures of people carrying Ukrainian flags in the centre of Kherson, the capital of the eponymous region and close to the Black Sea.

Hours earlier, Russian strikes killed seven people in Mykolaiv, a nearby city in southern Ukraine that the Russians have failed to capture but subjected to months of attack. 

“Kherson is returning to Ukrainian control and units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are entering the city,” Kyiv’s defence ministry said on social media.

It added that its artillery teams had clear views over Russia’s routes to retreat and warned: “Any attempts to oppose the Armed Forces of Ukraine will be stopped.”

Russia’s defence ministry said “more than 30,000 Russian servicemen, about 5,000 pieces of hardware and military equipment and materiel have been withdrawn”.

Kherson was the first major urban hub to fall after President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian troops into Ukraine on February 24. 

Its full recapture by Kyiv would be a political and symbolic blow to Putin and open a gateway for Ukraine’s forces to the entire Kherson region, with access to both the Black Sea in the west and Sea of Azov in the east.

“Ukraine is gaining another important victory right now and proves that whatever Russia says or does, Ukraine will win,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote on social media.

He posted an amateur video showing Ukrainians removing a billboard near Kherson that proclaimed: “Russia is here forever”.

– ‘In tears’ –

In Ukraine’s capital, the news was met with joy.

Wrapped in flags, popping champagne corks and belting out the Ukrainian national anthem, residents of Kherson living in Kyiv gathered in the city’s Maidan square to celebrate.

“I didn’t believe it at first, I thought it was going to take weeks and months, a few hundred metres at a time and now we see them arrive in Kherson in one day, it’s the best surprise,” said Artem Lukiv, 41, a Kherson resident living in Kyiv.

While it would appear a major Russian setback, the Kremlin insisted that Kherson was still part of Russia and that it did not regret annexing the entire Kherson region at a lavish ceremony in late September.

“This is a subject of the Russian Federation. There are no changes in this and there cannot be changes,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

A full Ukrainian recapture of the Kherson region would disrupt a vital land bridge for Russia between its mainland and the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

– ‘Cynical’ attack –

Ukrainian officials were initially wary after Moscow announced this week that it would pull forces to defensive positions on the east bank of the river in the city.

Kherson was one of four regions in Ukraine that Putin claimed to have annexed during the September ceremony, vowing at the time to use all available methods to defend it.

Asked by reporters whether Russia regretted annexing Kherson, Peskov said the Kremlin had “no regrets” about the move.

Earlier on Friday, a Russian strike on a residential building in Mykolaiv killed seven people, regional governor Vitaliy Kim said on social media.

An AFP journalist at the scene saw a gaping hole gouged out of a Soviet-style residential building with emergency workers in yellow helmets on site clearing rubble.

Zelensky branded the strike a “cynical response to our successes at the front”.

He announced late Thursday that his forces had recaptured more than 40 towns and villages in southern Ukraine during a counter-offensive begun in August.

On Thursday, the United States announced a new $400-million security assistance package for Kyiv, including defence systems and surface-to-air missiles.

Xi Jinping and Joe Biden will hold talks at next week’s G20 summit in Bali, their first face-to-face meeting since the US president took office and just weeks after the Chinese leader secured a landmark third term.

The leaders of the world’s two biggest economies have spoken by phone multiple times since Biden became president in January 2021. But the Covid-19 pandemic and Xi’s subsequent aversion to foreign travel have prevented them from meeting in person.

Beijing’s foreign ministry said Friday that China would always “firmly defend” its interests in talks with the United States, while working to “manage differences, promote mutually beneficial cooperation and avoid miscalculation”.

The White House had said a day earlier the meeting would go ahead, and that the leaders were set to discuss “efforts to maintain and deepen lines of communication”, as well as how to “responsibly manage competition and work together where our interests align”.

Both powers have challenged each other’s military and diplomatic influence — especially in the Asia-Pacific region.

They have been at odds over an array of issues, including trade, human rights in China’s Xinjiang region, and the status of the self-ruled island of Taiwan.

UN chief Antonio Guterres warned Friday of “a growing risk that the global economy will be divided into two parts, led by the two biggest economies –- the United States and China”.

“A divided global economy, with two different sets of rules, two dominant currencies, two internets, and two conflicting strategies on artificial intelligence, would undermine the world’s capacity to respond to the dramatic challenges we face,” Guterres said at an Association of Southeast Asian Nations leaders’ meeting.

“This decoupling must be avoided at all costs.”

– ‘Inevitable’ triumph –

At last month’s Communist Party Congress, Xi warned of a challenging geopolitical climate without mentioning the United States by name, as he wove a narrative of China’s “inevitable” triumph over adversity.

The G20 summit will serve as a diplomatic re-emergence for Xi following his anointment in October as China’s leader for a third term.

In Indonesia’s Bali, he is also set to meet French President Emmanuel Macron less than a fortnight after hosting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Beijing.

Biden, in turn, is headed into the trip to Southeast Asia “with the wind at his back”, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Thursday, with “an excellent opportunity both to deal with competitors from a strong position and to rally allies”.

US midterm elections this week brought surprisingly strong results for Biden’s party — limiting losses in the House, potentially holding the Senate, and chastening former president Donald Trump’s far-right wing.

Notably absent from the summit will be Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been shunned by the West over his invasion of Ukraine, and who is instead sending Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

A trip to the summit in Bali would have put Putin in the same room as Biden for the first time since the Ukraine war began on February 24.

Biden has fiercely criticised Putin and had ruled out meeting him in Bali if he went, unless they discussed the release of Americans held in Russia.

Putin’s spokesperson said Friday the president would not go to the G20 summit because of scheduling commitments.

Observers say the Kremlin is seeking to shield the 70-year-old leader from Western condemnation over the Ukraine war, in which Russian forces are suffering setbacks against a counter-offensive.

Political analyst Konstantin Kalachev said Putin did not want to step out of his comfort zone and face tough questions.

Putin’s refusal to attend the summit in person also suggests he does not have any firm proposal to end the offensive in Ukraine. 

“There is a sense of a dead end, and without concrete proposals Putin simply has nothing to do at this summit,” Kalachev told AFP.

While China as well as India have stopped short of condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a French presidential official insisted that there was a “very large majority” within the G20 who believed the war was unacceptable.

“There is a very clear space at the G20 to bear a message of peace and ask Russia to enter into the logic of de-escalation,” said the official, asking not to be named.

– Diplomatic tightrope –

Host Indonesia pursues a neutral foreign policy and had rebuffed Western calls to disinvite Russia.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo had invited Putin despite the Ukraine assault, prompting a flurry of Western criticism. In August, he said Putin had accepted that invitation.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to attend virtually. He had threatened to boycott the summit if Putin attended.

The G20 summit will be the bloc’s biggest meeting since the start of the pandemic.

It will be held under the shadow of divisions over the food and energy crises worsened by the Ukraine conflict, on top of soaring inflation and climate change.

G20 meetings held ahead of the leaders’ get-together all ended without a joint communique.

The summit is also not expected to close with a joint declaration, but the Indonesian foreign ministry said “the negotiation for the final document is still ongoing”.

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Britain on Friday accused Iran of threatening the lives of UK-based journalists, after a crackdown that rights groups say has left more than 300 anti-regime protesters dead in Iran itself.

On Friday demonstrations continued with hundreds of angry men protesting after Friday prayers in Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan province, online videos showed. Their action came six weeks after rights groups say dozens were killed during a crackdown in the region.

“I have summoned the Iranian charge d’affaires today after journalists working in the UK were subject to immediate threats to life from Iran,” UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly tweeted.

On Monday Volant Media, the London-based broadcaster of Iran International TV channel, said two British-Iranian journalists had received “death threats from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps”.

The journalists were working in the UK for the independent Farsi-language channel, said the broadcaster, which has been covering Iran’s anti-regime protests.

The channel has been declared a “terrorist organisation”, Iranian state media on Wednesday quoted Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib as saying.

Khatib also warned that the UK “will pay” for supporting “insecurity” in Iran.

Security forces shot dead more than 90 people at protests after weekly prayers on September 30 in the Sistan-Baluchistan provincial capital Zahedan, near Pakistan, said Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights (IHR).

The incident came two weeks after demonstrations flared in Iran over the death of Mahsa Amini, following her arrest for allegedly flouting the country’s strict dress code for women. 

The protests have grown into a broad movement against the theocracy under supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 83.

“Death to Khamenei,” chanted men who emerged from mosques in Zahedan after Friday prayers, in a video published by IHR.

The rights group says at least 304 people have been killed at the protests across Iran since Amini’s death on September 16.

It says around a third of them were killed in Sistan-Baluchistan, including those who died on September 30 — a massacre activists have dubbed “Bloody Friday”.

– ‘Urgent action’ –

The latest demonstrations came a week after a deadly crackdown in Khash, also in Sistan-Baluchistan. 

Amnesty International said at least 18 protesters, bystanders and worshippers — including two children — were killed when security forces acted against the “largely peaceful protests” there.

Demonstrations resumed Friday in Khash, and dozens of riot police were deployed in Iranshahr, in the same province, online videos verified by AFP showed.

Security forces were seen firing tear gas to disperse protesters in Iranshahr, in footage published by the 1500tasvir monitoring channel.

Iran’s Tasnim news agency said a week of appeals by “counter-revolutionaries” to create trouble 40 days after the Zahedan incident had failed.

Worshippers went home from Iran’s largest Sunni mosque in Zahedan without incident, except for some anti-government chants, Tasnim said.

In other locations including Khash, Iranshahr and Rask there had been only “small demonstrations”, the agency said. 

It added that in Iranshahr, demonstrators headed from a Sunni mosque toward a police station at which they threw stones until security forces intervened.

In Rask, residents burned tyres that briefly blocked the road leading to Chabahar port, Tasnim said.

London-based Amnesty called on the international community “to take urgent action to stop further killings”, and said the UN Human Rights Council must set up “an independent investigative and accountability mechanism to investigate crimes”.

Mass arrests have seen 1,000 people charged so far and activists say many risk the death penalty.

A panel of UN rights experts took that cause up on Friday, urging “Iranian authorities to stop using the death penalty as a tool to squash protests”. 

Iran’s foreign minister on Thursday accused Western countries of “promoting violence and teaching (protesters) to make weapons and Molotov cocktails via social networks and the media”.

In a phone call with UN chief Antonio Guterres, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian also said Iran “is the true defender of human rights and has exercised serious restraint regarding the recent riots”.

– ‘Chant Amini’s name’ –

The crackdown has mainly involved riot police, the Revolutionary Guards and their Basij paramilitary force.

But Iran’s army ground forces commander, Brigadier General Kioumars Heydari, said his troops were awaiting orders from Khamenei to intervene against the protesters.

Iran’s campaign of mass arrests against the protests has snared athletes, celebrities and journalists.

Activists have called on football fans attending the World Cup starting November 20 to chant Amini’s name during the 22nd minute at each of Iran’s matches — the time corresponding to her age. 

“Help us immortalise #MahsaAmini and our fight against this brutal regime,” tweeted New York-based campaigner Masih Alinejad.