World News

By Parisa Hafezi

DUBAI (Reuters) -Indirect talks between Tehran and Washington aimed at breaking an impasse over how to salvage Iran’s 2015 nuclear pact have ended in Qatar without the progress “the EU team as coordinator had hoped-for”, EU’s envoy Enrique Mora tweeted on Wednesday.

“We will keep working with even greater urgency to bring back on track a key deal for non-proliferation and regional stability,” Mora said.

The EU-mediated, indirect talks started on Tuesday with Mora as the coordinator, shuttling between Iran’s Ali Bagheri Kani and Washington’s special Iran envoy Rob Malley based in separate rooms in a hotel in Qatar’s capital.

Iran refuses to hold direct talks with its arch-foe, the United States, resulting in the “proximity” talks arrangement involving Mora.

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Naser Kanani said Bagheri Kani and Mora “will be in touch about continuing the path and the next stage of the talks”, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.

The nuclear pact seemed near revival in March but 11 months of talks between Tehran and major powers in Vienna were thrown into disarray chiefly over Tehran’s insistence that Washington remove the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), its elite security force, from the U.S. Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) list.

Iran’s Tasnim news agency, affiliated with the IRGC, blamed President Joe Biden administration’s “weakness and its inability to make a final decision” for lack of progress in the talks.

“What prevented these negotiations from coming to fruition is the U.S. insistence on its proposed draft text in Vienna that excludes any guarantees for Iran’s economic benefit,” Tasnim said.

“Washington seeks to revive the deal to put restrictions on Iran without allowing Tehran to gain any economic benefit.”

Under the nuclear pact, Tehran limited its uranium enrichment programme, a potential pathway to nuclear weapons though Iran says it seeks only civilian atomic energy, in exchange for relief from the economic sanctions.

But in 2018, then-U.S. President Donald Trump abandoned the deal, calling it too soft on Iran, and reimposed harsh U.S. sanctions, spurring Tehran to breach nuclear limits in the pact.

(Writing by Parisa HafeziEditing by Gareth Jones and Lisa Shumaker)

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By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Mali vowed on Wednesday to defy a United Nations Security Council call for the West African country to allow freedom of movement for peacekeepers to investigate human rights abuses.

The council extended a nine-year-old U.N. peacekeeping operation – known as MINUSMA – for another 12 months on Wednesday with 13 votes in favor, while Russia and China also objected to the rights mandate of the mission and abstained.

Mali’s military took power in a 2020 coup and has cut ties with former colonial power France as a Russian private military contractor, Wagner Group, steps in to help with a decade long battle against militants.

MINUSMA says it has documented 320 rights violations by Mali’s military between January and March.

“Mali is not in a position to guarantee the freedom of movement for MINUSMA’s inquiries without prior agreement of the government,” Mali’s U.N. Ambassador Issa Konfourou told the council. “Mali does not intend to comply with these provisions despite them being adopted by the Security Council.”

He said Mali was responsible for investigating any human rights violations.

“MINUSMA must be able to get access to the areas affected in order to carry out its mandate and to publish quarterly reports on human rights. The perpetrators of violations must be brought to justice,” said French U.N. Ambassador Nicolas de Riviere.

The most notable case being investigated by MINUSMA is in the town of Moura, where witnesses and rights groups say the Malian army accompanied by white fighters killed scores of civilians they suspected of being militants.

Russia’s Deputy U.N. Ambassador Anna Evstigneeva described the human rights language in the resolution adopted on Wednesday as “intrusive,” adding that it “will not help to ensure that the Malians enjoy their sovereign right to protect their own citizens and to investigate any incidents.”

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

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By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – A Congolese woman was kidnapped twice by militants in the Democratic Republic of Congo, repeatedly raped and forced to cook and eat human flesh, a Congolese rights group told the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday.

Julienne Lusenge, president of women’s rights group Female Solidarity for Integrated Peace and Development (SOFEPADI), told the woman’s story while addressing the 15-member council about the conflict-torn east of Congo.

The U.N. Security Council was meeting for a regular briefing on Congo, where heavy fighting between the government and rebel groups since late May has sparked a surge in violence.

Lusenge said the woman was kidnapped by CODECO militants when she went to pay a ransom for another kidnapped family member. The woman told the rights group that she was repeatedly raped and physically abused. Then she said the militants slit a man’s throat.

“They pulled out his entrails and they asked me to cook them. They brought me two water containers to prepare the rest of the meal. They then fed all of the prisoners human flesh,” Lusenge told the Security Council, recounting the woman’s story.

Lusenge said the woman was released after a few days, but while trying to return home was kidnapped by another militia group whose members also repeatedly raped her.

“Again I was asked to cook and eat human flesh,” the woman, who eventually escaped, told SOFEPADI.

Lusenge did not name the second militant group during her council briefing. CODECO could not be reached for comment.

CODECO is one of several armed militias that have long been fighting over land and resources in Congo’s mineral-rich east – a conflict that has killed thousands and displaced millions over the past decade.

Congo’s army has been locked in heavy fighting since late May with the M23 rebel group, which is waging its most sustained offensive since a 2012-2013 insurrection that seized vast swathes of territory.

U.N. peacekeepers have been deployed in Congo for more than 20 years.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Josie Kao)

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By Uditha Jayasinghe

COLOMBO (Reuters) – Sri Lankan doctors and other medical staff as well as teachers will take to the streets on Wednesday to demand that the government solve a severe fuel shortage at the heart of the South Asian country’s worst economic crisis in decades.

Weeks of street demonstrations against cascading problems including power cuts and shortages of food and medicine escalated last month when nine people were killed and about 300 were injured, leading to the resignation of the prime minister, Mahinda Rajapaksa, the older brother of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

The government, left with only enough fuel to last about a week, on Tuesday restricted supplies to essential services, like trains, buses and the health sector, for two weeks.

But doctors, nurses and other medical staff say that even though they are deemed essential workers, they struggle to find fuel to get to work.

“This is an impossible situation, the government has to give us a solution,” H. M. Mediwatta, secretary of one of Sri Lanka’s largest nursing unions, the All Island Nurses Union, told reporters.

Sri Lanka’s most serious economic crisis since independence in 1948 comes after COVID-19 battered its tourism-reliant economy and slashed remittances from its overseas workers.

Rising oil prices, populist tax cuts and a seven-month ban on the import of chemical fertilisers last year that devastated agriculture have compounded the woes.

Mediwatta explained how special token meant to ensure medical staff can buy fuel were being ignored at the petrol pumps.

“The people at the pump won’t let us get ahead in the line … We cannot be on time for our shifts.”

Public health inspectors and other health service workers are also on strike on Wednesday and Thursday.

The island nation of 22 million people has nearly run out of usable foreign exchange reserves to import essentials including food, medicine, petrol and diesel.

With a growing sense of crisis, many people have been detained trying to flee the country by boat.

The government is also looking abroad for help.

Power and Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekera on Tuesday met Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, Qatar’s minister of state for energy affairs and the CEO of Qatar Energy in a bid to secure fuel.

Wijesekera is also seeking a credit line from the Qatar Fund for Development.

Another Sri Lankan minister will travel to Russia at the weekend in search of energy deals.

U.S. President Joe Biden has pledged $20 million for Sri Lanka to feed more than 800,000 children and 27,000 pregnant women and lactating mothers for the next 15 months, President Rajapaksa said.

Investment firm Asia Securities said the shortages of fuel and other essentials, dwindling reserves, and low fiscal space would remain key concerns for the rest of the year.

The economy could contract by 7.5% to 9.0% year on year, compared with its previous forecast of a contraction of about 5.5%. The economy grew by 3.3% last year, it said.

“This combined with low USD liquidity and rising rates looks to dampen economic productivity for the medium term,” it said.

(Reporting by Uditha Jayasinghe; Writing by Krishna N. Das)

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MADRID (AP) — The Latest on the NATO summit in Madrid:

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Some 10,000 police are locking down Spain’s capital for the NATO summit.

The gathering of 40 world leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden, is taking place behind roadblocks formed by police vans and armored cars.

They are ringing Madrid’s vast IFEMA conference center on the edge of the city, where the talks open Wednesday.

Spain’s National Police have deployed surveillance drones, while the flying of civilian drones is prohibited during the event.

Local authorities have recommended that Madrid residents work from home if possible and avoid further complicating the traffic problems caused by the security apparatus.

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— Turkey lifts objections to Sweden, Finland joining NATO ahead of alliance summit

— Biden, NATO to beef up force posture amid Russian aggression

— Macron says Russia can’t win in Ukraine

— The AP Interview: Spanish PM says NATO summit to show unity

— OTHER DEVELOPMENTS:

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says the military alliance faces its “biggest challenge” since World War II amid the war in Ukraine.

Stoltenberg said at the start of the NATO summit in Madrid on Wednesday that the allies are meeting “in the midst of the most serious security crisis we have faced.”

“This will be a historic and transformative summit,” he told reporters.

Stoltenberg said the alliance is going to agree on deterrence to be able to deploy more combat formations and get more pre-positioned equipment in Eastern Europe by next year.

Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelenskyy is expected to address the 30 leaders via video link Wednesday, as Russia’s invasion stretches into its fifth month.

The gathering has already seen a breakthrough agreement between Turkey and Finland and Sweden for the Nordic countries to begin their accession process.

The asked to join the alliance after witnessing Russia’s brutal attack on its neighbor Ukraine, but Turkey had some misgivings that were overcome Tuesday.

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PARIS (AP) — Over the course of an extraordinary nine-month trial, the lone survivor of the Islamic State extremist team that attacked Paris in 2015 has proclaimed his radicalism, wept, apologized to victims and pleaded with judges to forgive his “mistakes.”

For victims’ families and survivors of the attacks, the trial for Salah Abdeslam and suspected accomplices has been excruciating yet crucial in their quest for justice and closure. At long last, the court will hand down its verdict Wednesday.

Abdeslam faces up to life in prison without parole on murder and other counts, the toughest sentence possible under France’s justice system.

The historic trial in Paris of 20 men suspected of critical roles in the Islamic State massacres that killed 130 people on Nov. 13, 2015, addressed the violence in the Bataclan theater, Paris cafes and the national stadium — France’s deadliest peacetime attack.

For months, the packed main chamber and 12 overflow rooms in the 13th century Justice Palace heard the harrowing accounts by the victims, along with testimony from Abdeslam. The other defendants are largely accused of helping with logistics or transportation. At least one is accused of a direct role in the deadly March 2016 attacks in Brussels, which also was claimed by the Islamic State group.

For survivors and those mourning loved ones, the trial was an opportunity to recount deeply personal accounts of the horrors inflicted that night and to listen to details of countless acts of bravery, humanity and compassion among strangers. Some hoped for justice, but most just wanted tell the accused directly that they have been left irreparably scarred, but not broken.

“The assassins, these terrorists, thought they were firing into the crowd, into a mass of people,” said Dominique Kielemoes at the start of the trial in September 2021. Her son bled to death in one of the cafes. Hearing the testimony of victims was “crucial to both their own healing and that of the nation,” Kielemoes said.

“It wasn’t a mass — these were individuals who had a life, who loved, had hopes and expectations,” she said.

France was changed in the wake of the attacks: Authorities declared a state of emergency and armed officers now constantly patrol public spaces. The violence sparked soul-searching among the French and Europeans, since most of the attackers were born and raised in France or Belgium. And they transformed forever the lives of all those who suffered losses or bore witness.

Presiding judge Jean-Louis Peries said at the trial’s outset that it belongs to “international and national events of this century.” France emerged from the state of emergency in 2017, after incorporating many of the harshest measures into law.

Fourteen of the defendants have been in court, including Abdeslam, the only survivor of the 10-member attacking team that terrorized Paris that Friday night. All but one of the six absent men are presumed to have been killed in Syria or Iraq; the other is in prison in Turkey.

Most of the suspects are accused of helping create false identities, transporting the attackers back to Europe from Syria or providing them with money, phones, explosives or weapons.

Abdeslam, a 32-year-old Belgian with Moroccan roots, was the only defendant tried on several counts of murder and kidnapping as a member of a terrorist organization.

The sentence sought for Abdeslam of life in prison without parole has only been pronounced four times in France — for crimes related to rape and murder of minors.

Prosecutors are seeking life sentences for nine other defendants. The remaining suspects were tried on lesser terrorism charges and face sentences ranging from five to 30 years.

In closing arguments, prosecutors stressed that all 20 defendants, who had fanned out around the French capital, armed with semi-automatic rifles and explosives-packed vests to mount parallel attacks, are members of the Islamic State extremist group responsible for the massacres.

“Not everyone is a jihadi, but all of those you are judging accepted to take part in a terrorist group, either by conviction, cowardliness or greed,” prosecutor Nicolas Braconnay told the court this month.

Some defendants, including Abdeslam, said innocent civilians were targeted because of France’s policies in the Middle East and hundreds of civilian deaths in Western airstrikes in Syria and Iraq on Islamic State fighters.

During his testimony, former President François Hollande dismissed claims that his government was at fault.

The Islamic State, “this pseudo-state, declared war with the weapons of war,” Hollande said. The Paris attackers did not terrorize, shoot, kill, maim and traumatize civilians because of religion, he said, adding it was “fanaticism and barbarism.”

The night of the attack was a balmy Friday evening, with the city’s bars and restaurants packed. At the Bataclan concert venue, the American band Eagles of Death Metal were playing to a full house. At the national stadium, a soccer match between France and Germany had just begun, attended by then-President Hollande and then-Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The sound of the first suicide bombing at 9:16 p.m. barely carried over the noise of the stadium’s crowd. The second came four minutes later. A squad of gunmen opened fire at several bars and restaurants in another part of Paris. That bloodshed outside came to an end at 9:41 p.m.

Worse was to follow. At 9:47 p.m., three more gunmen burst into the Bataclan, firing indiscriminately. Ninety people died within minutes. Hundreds were held hostage – some gravely injured – inside the concert hall for hours before Hollande, watching people covered in blood make their way out of the Bataclan, ordered it stormed.

Abdeslam was silent for years, refusing to speak to investigators. In April, his words started flowing, in testimony that at times contradicted earlier statements, including on his loyalty to the Islamic State.

He told the court that he was a last-minute addition to the group. He said he “renounced” his mission to detonate his explosives-packed vest in a bar in northern Paris that night. He hid out at first near Paris, and then fled with friends to Brussels, where he was arrested four months later.

Prosecutors emphasized contradictions in Abdeslam’s testimony — from pledging allegiance to the Islamic State at the start of the trial and expressing regret that his explosives strapped to his body failed to detonate, to claiming he had changed his mind in the bar and deliberately disabled his vest because he did not want to kill people “singing and dancing.”

During closing arguments Monday, Abdelslam’s lawyer Olivia Ronen told a panel of judges that her client is the only one in the group of attackers who didn’t set off explosives to kill others that night. He can’t be convicted for murder, she argued.

“If a life sentence without hope for ever experiencing freedom again is pronounced, I fear we have lost a sense of proportion,” Ronan said. She emphasized through the trial that she is “not providing legitimacy to the attacks” by defending her client in court.

Abdeslam apologized to the victims at his final court appearance Monday, saying his remorse and sorrow is heartfelt and sincere. Listening to victims’ accounts of “so much suffering” changed him, he said.

“I have made mistakes, it’s true, but I am not a murderer, I am not a killer,” he said.

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Surk contributed from Nice, France.

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By Ahmed Elumami and Angus McDowall

TRIPOLI (Reuters) – The U.S. ambassador to Libya said on Tuesday that it could be possible to hold national elections without resolving a standoff between two rival governments and that a mechanism to oversee spending could help with governance for an interim period.

A scheduled election planned for December last year collapsed amid disputes over the rules. Although the parliament has appointed a new government, the one installed last year through a U.N.-backed process refuses to step down.

Libyans fear the crisis will derail efforts to get the elections back on track and could return the country to territorial partition and civil war.

The ambassador, Richard Norland, told Reuters in an interview that while he was optimistic that Geneva talks this week could resolve the impasse, there were ways to move forward without a single Libyan government.

Factions that dominated different parts of the country could separately lead those areas toward a national election.

“The reality of the Libyan political scene is that no single actor can produce an outcome. The only formula that’s going to work is for the key actors to get together and negotiate a compromise,” he said.

He said that if this week’s Geneva talks between Libya’s two legislative bodies on a constitutional basis for elections did not produce a deal, he expected further negotiations that would build on areas already agreed.

FINANCIAL DISPUTES

The United States is pushing efforts to reduce conflict by ensuring fair, transparent spending of Libya’s oil revenue until an elected government can take office.

The United States and international partners have held meetings with Libyan figures to work out agreements on spending priorities, transparency, funding allocations and oversight of how money is used, he said.

“It’s essentially a committee and you want the right people and the right organisations,” he said, including from state auditing bodies, the parliament, finance ministry and others.

He said there had been buy-in from eastern and western factions to the idea, and that it would require broad involvement so that “the various political strands in the country feel their interests are being addressed” he said.

Economic disputes have amplified this year as the political crisis has accelerated. Groups aligned with eastern forces have blockaded oil output as a tactic to demand the parliament-appointed government take power.

And on Tuesday the eastern branch of the central bank indicated it could start printing its own money as the process of reunifying the bank hits problems.

A mechanism to resolve financial disputes over oil revenue is key to reunifying the central banks, he said.

“This mechanism could provide a short-term pseudo-governmental function until elections take place so the sooner that happens the better for all Libyans,” he added.

(Reporting by Ahmed Elumami and Angus McDowall; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

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KYIV (Reuters) – Ukraine’s security service said on Tuesday it arrested a former Soviet KGB agent who helped direct Russian missile strikes that killed over 50 soldiers at a military facility in the country’s west in March.

The suspect sent the locations of targets at the Yavoriv military training centre to contacts in an unspecified Russian agency using the Telegram messaging app, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and local prosecutors said.

“As a result of rocket strikes on the Yavoriv training range over 50 service personnel died, and almost 150 received injuries,” the SBU said on Telegram.

In the aftermath of the missile strike, Ukraine had said that 35 troops were killed at the facility, which lies 15 miles (25 km) from the Polish border.

The suspect, a native of the western city of Lviv, is being held in detention and investigated for treason, the prosecutor’s office said.

He could not immediately be reached for comment by Reuters.

(Reporting by Max Hunder; editing by Tom Balmforth and Sandra Maler)

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By Sakura Murakami and Elaine Lies

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan baked under scorching temperatures for a fourth successive day on Tuesday, as the capital’s heat broke nearly 150-year-old records for June and authorities warned power supply remained tight enough to raise the spectre of cuts.

A high of 36 C was predicted for Tokyo on Tuesday, after three successive days of temperatures topping 35 C – the worst streak of hot weather in June since records began in 1875.

Cases of hospitalisation from heatstroke rose early in the day, with many in the capital continue to flout government advice by continuing to wear face masks outdoors – a legacy of more than two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.

For a second day, authorities asked consumers in the Tokyo area to conserve electricity to avoid a looming power cut. The heatwave comes less than two weeks before a national election in which surging prices – including electricity – are rated the top concern for voters in opinion polls that show the government’s approval rating slipping.

As of 9:00 a.m. local time (0000 GMT), 13 people had been taken to hospital with suspected heatstroke, Fuji News Network said. At least two people are believed to have died from heatstroke, media said, prompting authorities to moderate their calls for power saving.

“Apparently there are some elderly people who have turned off their air conditioners because we are asking people to save energy, but please – it’s this hot – don’t hesitate about cooling off,” trade and industry minister Koichi Hagiuda told a news conference.

The government warned on Monday that reserve generating capacity could drop below 5% on Tuesday afternoon, close to the minimum of 3% that ensures stable supply, in Tokyo and eight surrounding prefectures. Reserve capacity below 3% risks power shortages and blackouts.

Government offices on Monday – including the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) – turned off some lights in the afternoon and evening, with METI halting use of 25% of elevators in its building.

Around 21% of respondents to a Yahoo Japan survey said using air conditioners helped them beat the heat, with staying hydrated in the top slot at 53%. Only 12% said they had stopped wearing face masks despite government guidelines that they no longer need to be worn outside.

Though expected to do well in the July 10 election for the upper house of parliament, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s ruling party faces headwinds from rising prices, worsened by a slide in the value of the yen that makes imports more costly.

The Kishida cabinet’s approval came to 50% in a voter survey conducted by public broadcaster NHK on June 24-26, down from 55% last week.

(Additional reporting by Sakura Murakami and Kantaro Komiya; Writing by Elaine Lies; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell)

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By Kaylee Greenlee Beal, Kristina Cooke and Mica Rosenberg

SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) -The bodies of 46 dead migrants were discovered inside a tractor-trailer on Monday in San Antonio, Texas, city officials said, in one of the most deadly recent incidents of human smuggling along the U.S.-Mexico border.

A San Antonio Fire Department official said they found “stacks of bodies” and no signs of water in the truck, which was found next to railroad tracks in a remote area on the city’s southern outskirts.

Sixteen other people found inside the trailer were transported to hospitals for heat stroke and exhaustion, including four minors, but no children were among the dead, the department said.

“The patients that we saw were hot to the touch, they were suffering from heat stroke, exhaustion,” San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood told a news conference. “It was a refrigerated tractor-trailer but there was no visible working A/C unit on that rig.”

Temperatures in San Antonio, which is about 160 miles (250 km) from the Mexican border, swelled to a high of 103 degrees Fahrenheit (39.4 degrees Celsius) on Monday with high humidity.

The city’s Police Chief William McManus said a person who works in a nearby building heard a cry for help and came out to investigate. The worker found the trailer doors partially opened and looked inside and found a number of dead bodies.

McManus said this was the largest incident of its kind in the city and said three people were in custody following the incident, though their involvement is not yet clear.

A spokesperson for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said that its Homeland Security Investigations division was investigating “an alleged human smuggling event” in coordination with local police.

RECORD CROSSINGS

The deaths once again highlight the challenge of controlling migrant crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border, which have reached record highs.

The issue has proven difficult for U.S. President Joe Biden, a Democrat who came into office in January 2021 pledging to reverse some of the hardline immigration policies of his Republican predecessor Donald Trump. Republicans have criticized Biden’s border strategy ahead of the midterm congressional elections in November.

Mexico’s Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard called the suffocation of the migrants in the truck the “tragedy in Texas” on Twitter and said consular officials would go to the hospitals where victims had been taken to help “however possible.”

A spokesman for the Honduran foreign ministry told Reuters the country’s consulates in Houston and Dallas would be investigating the incident. Ebrard said two Guatemalans were hospitalized and Guatemala’s foreign ministry said on Twitter that consular officials were going to the hospital “to verify if there are two Guatemalan minors there and what condition they are in.”

The I-35 highway near where the truck was found runs through San Antonio from the Mexican border and is a popular smuggling corridor because of the large volume of truck traffic, according to Jack Staton, a former senior official with ICE’s investigative unit who retired in December.

In July 2017, 10 migrants died after being transported in a tractor-trailer that was discovered by San Antonio police in a Wal-Mart parking lot. The driver, James Matthew Bradley, Jr., was sentenced the following year to life in prison for his role in the smuggling operation.

Staton said migrants have regularly been intercepted in the area since the 2017 incident. “It was only a matter of time before a tragedy like this was going to happen again,” he said.

(Reporting by Ted Hesson, Kaylee Greenlee Beal, Rami Ayyub, Eric Beech and Costas Pitas; Additional reporting by Lizbeth Diaz and Kylie Madry in Mexico City, Gustavo Palencia in Tegucigalpa and Sofia Menchu in Guatemala City; Writing by Mica Rosenberg; Editing by Sandra Maler and Christian Schmollinger)

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