The Times - UK (2020-10-15)

30 2GM Thursday October 15 2020 | the times

Wo r l d

Gang is arrested over

plonk sold as fine wine

Italy The police have arrested a

father and son and 11 other

people on suspicion of passing off

cheap Sicilian wine as Sassicaia, a

Tuscan red that sells for

hundreds of euros a bottle. An

investigation was launched last

year after a case of the fake wine

fell off a lorry and was found

beside the road. The gang was

said to have been making

€400,000 a month. (Reuters)

Police chief held after

sleeping man killed

Tunisia Residents blocked roads

and set a vehicle on fire in the

town of Sbeitla after police

demolished an illegal kiosk,

killing a man asleep inside.

Security forces also had stones

thrown at them. Oussama

Khachnaoui, the building’s owner,

whose father was the victim, said

no one checked that the kiosk

was empty. The town’s police

chief has been arrested. (AFP)

Turkey to unveil size of

‘biggest-ever’ gas find

Turkey President Erdogan will

announce the size of gas reserves

found in the biggest-ever

discovery in Turkey when he

visits a drillship in the Black Sea

on Saturday. In August he said

the discovery of a 320 billion

cubic metre field about 115 miles

north of Turkey was part of

bigger reserves. The gas could

lessen Turkey’s reliance on Russia

and Iran for energy. (Reuters)

Museveni rival is held

in security forces raid

Uganda Bobi Wine, the pop star

politician, was detained by

security forces during a raid of his

offices in Kampala. Wine, 38,

whose real name is Robert

Kyagulanyi, says he will stand

against President Museveni in the

election next year. He tweeted

that “police and army” broke into

his National Unity Platform party

offices. Mr Museveni has been in

power since 1986. (AFP)

Soyuz crew rockets to

space station record

Russia A Soyuz craft with Sergey

Kud-Sverchkov and Sergey

Ryzhikov of Russia and Kathleen

Rubin of Nasa on board has

docked with the International

Space Station three hours and

three minutes after blasting off

from Baikonur cosmodrome in

Kazakhstan, a record time for the

journey, Roscosmos said.

Journeys to the space station

generally take six hours. (AFP)

Far-right Golden Dawn

leader and MPs jailed

The leader of Greece’s neo-Nazi

Golden Dawn has been sentenced

to 13 years for running a criminal

organisation, spelling the end of

his violent militia that disguised

itself for years as a political party.

Nikos Michaloliakos, 62, and five

senior members, all former MPs,

were convicted of overseeing a

campaign of violence against

opponents. The presiding judge

said the court in Athens would

consider a defence petition for all

terms to be suspended pending a

possible appeal. Eleven other

former MPs, including Eleni

Zaroulia, 59, the leader’s wife,

were given jail terms of between

five and seven years for belonging

to a criminal organisation.

The Belarusian opposition leader has

issued a “people’s ultimatum” to the

country’s president to step down within

two weeks or face a paralysing general

strike and increased unrest.

Svetlana Tikhanovskaya warned

President Lukashenko that he had 13

days to meet three demands: his

resignation, the release of all political

prisoners and a complete halt to police

Quit or face turmoil on streets, Lukashenko warned

violence against protesters. “If our

demands are not met by October 25,

the whole country will take to the

streets peacefully,” she said. “And on

October 26 the national strike of all en-

terprises, blocking of all roads, collapse

of sales in state shops will begin. You

have 13 days to fulfil three conditions.

We have 13 days to prepare,” she added.

The ultimatum is the opposition’s

most significant call to action and an

escalation in rhetoric by Ms Tikhanov-

skaya, 38, who was forced into exile in

Lithuania after a rigged presidential

election on August 9 which she is wide-

ly believed to have won. Regular

protests have drawn crowds of

hundreds of thousands on to

the streets of Minsk every

weekend but strikes have failed

to reach a critical mass. Al-

though Mr Lukashenko, 66, has

retained the loyalty of his security

forces, a slump in the economy has

caused his support to haemorrhage.

The opposition hope that the eco-

nomic pressure of a general strike

may be the final straw for him.

A crackdown on protests has

turned increasingly violent. On

Sunday, police detained more than

400 protesters and 49 journal-

ists and used rubber bul-

lets and water cannon

against the crowds.

Belarus

Gareth Browne Minsk

Svetlana Tikhanovskaya

gave the president two

weeks to step down

The European Commission is set to

take action against EU member states

engaged in selling passports after

Cyprus was forced to suspend its

scheme.

Sven Giegold, an MEP with the

German Green Party who has been

campaigning against so-called golden

passport schemes, said he expected

action to be taken “very quickly”

against countries that infringed EU

rules on money laundering and tax

evasion by providing passports for cash.

“Any country that wants to enjoy

open access to the Schengen zone

cannot continue with selling citizens’

rights. A national citizen’s rights is at the

same time an EU citizen’s rights,” he

told The Times.

Cyprus and Malta offer instant citi-

zenship to anyone who invests at least

€2.5 million in property or €1.1 million

Cyprus halts cash-for-passports

scheme after corruption claims

in national debt. Several other EU

states, including Greece and Portugal,

run schemes in which permanent

residency is granted in return for

investment. After a number of years

residents are then eligible to apply for

citizenship. The UK offers a similar

scheme under its tier-one investor visa.

Moldova, Montenegro and Turkey

offer citizenship by investment for as

little as $250,000. Although not EU

members, Moldovan and Montenegrin

citizens enjoy visa-free travel in the

Schengen zone, while Turks can take

advantage of the Ankara agreement,

which allows them to move to the EU

by setting up a business there. The UK

is set to continue honouring the Ankara

agreement after Brexit.

Cyprus said this week that it was sus-

pending its golden-passport scheme,

under which thousands have gained

citizenship since 2013, after a politician

was among those filmed by undercover

reporters from Al Jazeera who claimed

to be acting for a Chinese businessman

convicted of money laundering.

Although the country’s rules on

citizenship by investment state that

convicted criminals should be barred

from buying passports, the reporters

were told that the businessman would

nonetheless be able to obtain citizen-

ship through connections with

politicians and high-ranking officials

within the board that decides on appli-

cations.

One lawyer told them that “when

you know the angels you don’t need to

know the gods”.

The reporters were told that their

fictional client could get a new name on

his passport, in effect making his past

invisible to the European authorities.

“What shocked me most was how...

it was as if they always behaved like

this,” Mr Giegold said. “They were con-

spiring to offer criminal services in a

completely shocking way.”

The revelations could prove the final

blow for the Cypriot scheme, which has

helped refinance the country after a

banking crisis of 2012 but raised con-

cerns over its lack of transparency and

usefulness for super-rich individuals

who are trying to evade the law.

Last year Reuters revealed that the

Cambodian prime minister’s family,

the Malaysian fugitive businessman

Jho Low and several Russian oligarchs

had bought Cypriot passports.

Campaigners have welcomed

Cyprus’s suspension of its scheme but

warned that permanent safeguards

needed to be put in place.

“While other EU member states

continue to offer visas, passports and

citizenship to anyone with the cash to

spare, the whole of the EU will remain

at risk” said Ava Lee, an anti-corruption

campaign leader at Global Witness.

“It’s time, once and for all, for the whole

of Europe to come together to agree

that citizenship is about more than —

often dirty – money.”

Cyprus

Hannah Lucinda Smith

T

he Thai

government last

night banned

public gatherings

after at least

10,000 protesters marched

through Bangkok

demanding the prime

minister’s resignation and a

new constitution to curb

the king’s power.

Scuffles broke out with

thousands of royalists in

scenes reminiscent of the

decade of street violence

that ended in 2014 with

a coup.

The demonstration was

one of the biggest

protests in recent

years. Fights broke

out as police tried

to keep the two

sides apart.

The two camps

came face to face

at the

Democracy

Monument in

the city centre.

The site has

become a focal

point for the

protesters, who

are calling for the

removal of

Prayuth Chan-

ocha, the retired

general who led

the coup. They

are also breaking a

longstanding taboo by

seeking limits to the

power of King

Vajiralongkorn. Critics

want the return of a palace

fortune, valued at tens of

billions of dollars, and for

him to relinquish his

control over army units.

“Have faith in

democracy,” Parit

“Penguin” Chirawat, a

protest leader, told the

marchers. Demonstration

organisers said that it was

their biggest rally, although

police put the crowd at

about 8,000.

Thousands of yellow-clad

royalist supporters also

lined the streets to catch a

rare glimpse of the

motorcade bearing the

king, who spends most of

his time in Germany. Some

protesters later delayed a

convoy carrying Queen

Suthida, a former flight

attendant. They gave the

three-fingered salute of

protest and chanted: “Get

out”.

Royalists

clash with

protesters

in Bangkok

Protesters fought with monarchists in yellow as King Vajiralongkorn returned from Germany with Queen Suthida

RUNGROJ YONGRIT/EPA; JORGE SILVA/REUTERS