34 2GM Friday August 28 2020 | the times
Wo r l d
Ten activists held for
fleeing Hong Kong
Hong Kong At least ten
democracy activists were arrested
by the Chinese coastguard for
illegally crossing Hong Kong’s
maritime border as they tried to
flee to Taiwan by speedboat on
Sunday, according to a Facebook
post by the coastguard in
Guangdong, China. The activists
were thought to include Andy Li,
one of ten people arrested this
month for allegedly breaking the
anti-subversion law imposed by
China last month. He was
accused of being a member of
Fight for Freedom, Stand with
Hong Kong, an online forum
accused of calling for
international sanctions, which is
illegal under the subversion law.Cheesemaker charged
after ten listeria deaths
Switzerland A cheesemaker has
been charged after food infected
with listeria killed ten people and
made 24 others ill. The producer,
in the canton of Schwyz, is
accused of negligent homicide
and causing bodily harm. Listeria
is common and most people who
consume affected food do not
become ill but it can be a danger
to those who are elderly, in poor
health or pregnant. (AFP)Father and child lost in
migrant boat sinking
Greece A search is under way for
a father and child missing in the
eastern Aegean Sea two days
after the partial sinking of a yacht
that had been carrying nearly
100 migrants. Helicopters, patrol
boats and nearby merchant ships
rescued 96 people about 25 miles
west of the Greek island of Halki.
The coastguard said four people
had been arrested on suspicion of
people smuggling. (AP)Malian junta says it has
freed ousted president
Mali The deposed President Keïta
has been freed from prison,
according to the military rulers
who ousted him last week. His
release was a key demand of
Mali’s neighbours and
international groups including
the African Union and European
Union. The junta, which said
when it mutinied that Mali was
sinking into chaos, said Mr Keïta,
75, was in his residence. (AFP)Third theft of painting
is no laughing matter
Netherlands A work by the
17th century Dutch artist Frans
Hals has been stolen for a third
time. Two Laughing Boys, taken
from Hofje van Mevrouw van
Aerden museum in Leerdam in
2011 and 1988, was taken from the
same place early on Wednesday.
The Dutch art detective Arthur
Brand said that the theft had
happened on the anniversary of
Hals’s death in 1666. (AFP)Cartoonist held after
lampooning UAE deal
Jordan The cartoonist Emad
Hajjaj, 52, has been arrested and
charged with seeking to
undermine Jordan’s relations with
a “friendly country” after
publishing a drawing criticising
the Israel-UAE peace deal. It
shows Crown Prince Mohammed
bin Zayed al-Nahyan of Abu
Dhabi spitting in the face of a
UAE official. Hajjaj faces up to
five years in jail. (AFP)of up to 200,000 people on weekends.
He claimed victory in the election as of-
ficial results gave him 80 per cent of the
vote, compared with 10 per cent for
Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, 37, his nearest
challenger. Mrs Tikhanovskaya’s sup-
porters dismissed that as a sham and
have taken part in peaceful street pro-
tests, despite early gatherings being
met with police violence.
Mr Putin, 67, said there was no need
for intervention immediately and he
hoped there would not be in the future.
He called for all parties to “find a way
out without resorting to extremes”.
Dmitry Trenin, of the Moscow Car-
negie Centre, a think tank, said Mr Pu-
tin’s move showed how important Bela-
rus was to Russia as a buffer state on its
Nato borders. “There is no chance that
Moscow will abandon the key strategic
position that Belarus occupies,” he said.
Poland called Mr Putin’s promise a
“hostile act” and urged Russia to “im-
mediately withdraw from plans of aindicated approval for moves against a
co-ordinating council set up by the op-
position with the aim of negotiating a
transfer of power. This month Mr Luka-
shenko promised legal measures to
“cool a few hotheads” on the council. A
criminal investigation into its members
started soon afterwards. Two members
of the council were given ten-day spells
in jail on minor charges this week.
Mr Putin claimed Belarusian law en-
forcement officers had been “quite re-
served” in handling demonstrations.
However, protesters have described
their severe treatment at the hands of
police and prison staff.
Mr Putin’s comments will dismay the
opposition. Mr Lukashenko has sug-
gested Mrs Tikhanovskaya, who fled to
Lithuania after the election, and her
allies planned to erode ties with Mos-
cow. She said this week it was “rubbish”
to suggest she was anti-Russian, add-
ing: “The only thing I ask of [Russia] is
to respect our sovereignty.”President Putin has set up a security
force to enter Belarus and prop up its
dictator if protests get “out of control”.
Speaking on state TV, the Russian
leader said President Lukashenko had
asked him to form a reserve of officers
from law enforcement agencies.
It was the Kremlin’s most forthright
show of support for Mr Lukashenko, 65,
since demonstrations started on
August 9 after a disputed election in
which he claimed a landslide victory.
“We agreed that [the force] will not be
used until the situation gets out of con-
trol, and when extremist elements, hid-
ing behind slogans, cross certain lines
and engage in brigandry,” Mr Putin said.
That line would be when protesters
began “burning cars, houses, banks and
trying to seize administrative buildings”.
The decision is a boon for Mr Luka-
shenko, who is facing strikes and rallies
Belarus
Tom Parfitt Moscow
Putin mobilises security force
to quell Belarus street protests
Russian troops take part in a seaborne landing exercise on Gogland Island in the Baltic Sea this week. President Putin warned Belarusian protesters against “brigandry”
Staff at a Berlin hospital treating Alexei
Navalny are said to have requested
information from doctors who cared
for a poisoned Bulgarian arms dealer.
Doctors at the Charité hospital have
contacted colleagues who treated
Emilian Gebrev, according to unident-
ified sources cited by Der Spiegel and
the Bellingcat investigative group.
The Bulgarian state charged three
alleged GRU Russian military intelli-
gence officers in absentia in February
Navalny poison linked to 2015 assassination attempt
with the attempted murder of Mr
Gebrev, his son and an associate in Sofia
in 2015 via “intoxication with an un-
identified organophosphorus sub-
stance”. All three survived.
The inquiry was reopened in 2018
after Mr Gebrev said he believed he had
been poisoned with novichok, the nerve
agent used that March to attack the
Russian former MI6 informer Sergei
Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury.
Charité said that clinical findings in-
dicated Mr Navalny, 44, President Pu-
tin’s most prominent critic, was poi-
soned with “a substance from the groupof cholinesterase inhibitors”. This is a
large group of chemicals which in-
cludes medicinal drugs for neurological
disorders as well as some pesticides and
organophosphate nerve agents such as
novichok, sarin and VX.
Mr Navalny collapsed on a plane to
Moscow after drinking a cup of tea at
Tomsk airport, in Siberia, on Thursday
last week. Russian doctors said he had
suffered a “metabolism disorder” prob-
ably caused by low blood sugar. He was
flown to Germany on Saturday.
His supporters believe he was target-
ed for his anti-corruption investigationsor his political opposition to Mr Putin.
They suspect a toxin was put in his tea.
Bulgarian prosecutors named the
three suspected hitmen in the Gebrev
attack as Sergey Fedotov, Sergey
Pavlov and Georgy Gorshkov. Fedotov
is thought to be an alias for Denis Ser-
geyev, a GRU major-general. Flight and
phone records published by Bellingcat
show that Mr Sergeyev was in Britain in
March 2018 when two other alleged
GRU officers poisoned Mr Skripal.
It is thought Mr Gebrev may have
been targeted for supplying arms to
Ukraine where Russia backs separatists.Russia
Tom Parfitt, Oliver Moody Berlin
military intervention in Belarus, under
[the] false excuse of ‘restoring control’ ”.
Mr Putin insisted that Russia was
behaving with “greater restraint and
neutrality” than the US and European
states. The US, EU and Britain have
said they do not recognise the election
result, and condemned attacks on pro-testers. The EU is drawing up sanctions
against senior Belarusian officials.
Mr Putin said Belarusians should
decide their own affairs but Russia
could not be indifferent because of eth-
nic, cultural and economic ties. Bela-
rus’s government should “hear” the
opinion of the protesters, he said, but hePresident
Lukashenko
claimed victory in
a disputed election
this monthPETER KOVALEV/TASS/GETTY IMAGES