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13 people arrested in Croatia for illegally disposing of hazardous waste

ZAGREB, CROATIA — Thirteen people suspected of illegally importing and disposing of hazardous waste have been arrested in Croatia, the European Union’s law enforcement agency said Friday. 

The main suspects, two Croatian nationals, are considered high-value targets by Europol, said an agency statement. They are believed to have orchestrated the illegal hazardous waste imports from Italy, Slovenia and Germany to Croatia. 

Rather than being properly treated, the waste was simply dumped and buried, Europol said. The statement added that at least 35,000 metric tons (38,580 U.S. tons) of waste were illegally disposed of resulting in a profit of at least $4.2 million. 

The waste was declared as recyclable plastic waste but was “legally considered dangerous waste,” Europol said. Croatian authorities believe the criminal network also illegally buried and dumped medical waste from Croatian companies, it said. 

Croatian anti-corruption authorities said in a statement of their own Friday that they have launched an investigation into 10 people and four legal entities suspected of criminal conspiracy, crimes against the environment, tax evasion and money laundering. They said they will seek to keep seven people detained, the state-run HRT television said. 

The Croatian office tasked with fighting organized crime and corruption said illegal waste disposal has inflicted damage on the environment, including changes in the land configuration that affected plant and tree growth, release of toxic particles in the soil and air, and potential negative effect on people’s health. 

Croatia has suffered “considerable ecological damage” and still unspecified material damage, the Office for the Suppression of Corruption and Organized Crime said in a statement. 

Europol said the suspects abused the infrastructures of legal businesses. They would first offer lower prices for disposal and then falsify documentation to transport their cargo to Croatia, allegedly for recycling. 

Waste trafficking enables criminal networks to obtain huge profits while often causing irreparable damage to the environment, the agency said.
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Pope Francis taken to hospital for bronchitis treatment

ROME — Pope Francis was taken to hospital on Friday morning for tests and to continue treatment of his ongoing bronchitis, the Vatican said.

“This morning, at the end of his audiences, Pope Francis was admitted to the Policlinico Agostino Gemelli for some necessary diagnostic tests and to continue his treatment for bronchitis, which is still ongoing, in a hospital environment,” it said in a statement.

Francis, 88, has been pope since 2013 and has suffered from influenza and other health problems several times over the past two years.

Earlier this month, Francis told pilgrims at a weekly audience that he was suffering from a “strong cold,” which the Vatican later described as bronchitis.

The pope has been keeping up his daily schedule of appointments despite his illness, taking meetings at the Vatican residence where he lives. Before going to hospital on Friday, the pope had an official meeting with Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico.

Francis suffered two falls recently at his Vatican residence, bruising his chin in December and injuring his arm in January.

Rome’s Gemelli hospital, the largest in the city, has a special suite for treating popes. Francis spent nine days there in June 2023, when he had surgery to repair an abdominal hernia. 
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As Germany election looms, far-right German party continues to gather support

German voters head to the polls this month for an election that will determine who the country’s new chancellor will be. The Feb. 23 poll is a snap election, following the collapse of center-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition government last year.

The far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, founded in 2013, appears to be gathering strength and support across the country and has emerged as a factor in the election.

The party’s popularity has been fueled by dissatisfaction with the large numbers of immigrants in the country. While AfD has evolved to focus its attention on other issues, including the immediate lifting of sanctions against Russia, immigration remains its central theme.

Alice Weidel, AfD’s first candidate for chancellor, is a staunch supporter of so-called “remigration,” a term used to describe the mass deportation of immigrants.

Political analysts say Weidel has little chance of becoming chancellor, but as AfD’s popularity has risen, it has forced politicians to rethink their conversations and debates about immigration.

AfD won its first parliamentary seats in 2017, with 12.6% of the votes.  In 2021, the party had only 10.3% of the votes.  It has supporters across the country and its politicians have been elected to 14 of Germany’s 16 state legislatures.

Its emergence as a political force occurs at the same time that other far-right parties are rising in Europe, including Austria’s Freedom Party and the National Rally in France.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press. 
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Jailed Georgian journalist: ‘I will not bow to this regime’

WASHINGTON — “I will not bow to this regime,” writes Mzia Amaglobeli from pre-trial detention in the city of Batumi in Georgia.

The 49-year-old journalist has been in custody since January 11 and on a hunger strike since January 12 over her detention.

Amaglobeli was attending a protest where demonstrations were calling for fresh elections and objecting to the government’s suspension of Georgia’s EU accession plans.

At first, police detained Amaglobeli for putting a sticker on a wall. She was released, only to be arrested later that day for slapping a police officer.

Georgia’s prime minister and other government officials have said that Amaglobeli should end her hunger strike and apologize for her actions.

But media watchdogs believe her arrest is connected to her journalism.

Journalist previously threatened

Amaglobeli is the founder of the websites Batumelebi and Netgazeti, which focus on political news, investigations and corruption. Both Amaglobeli and her media group have come under pressure and threats previously for their work.

Amaglobeli’s health has declined after being on a hunger strike for a month, and she is being held in a private clinic under a doctor’s supervision, but she remains in custody.

Nestan Tsetskhladze, a friend and colleague, told VOA that the journalist plans to remain on her hunger strike until March 4, when she is due to appear in court.

“She is on hunger strike in protest, to show that she won’t tolerate this regime,” Tsetskhladze told VOA. “She is not going to live by this regime’s agenda. That is her goal.”

Amaglobeli has also written of her position in a letter last month to colleagues that was shared with media.

“Today it is me, tomorrow it could be anyone who dares to dream of a just, democratic European Georgia, untouched by Russian influence, unshaken by oppression,” wrote Amaglobeli. “I will not bow to this regime. I will not play by its rules.”

Hundreds arrested

The journalist is one of hundreds of people to be arrested since parliamentary elections in October resulted in nationwide protests.

The country’s ruling Georgian Dream party officially won the election with around 54% of the vote, but the results were challenged by then-President Salome Zourabichvili and opposition parties, who claimed the elections were rigged.

Observers, including the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said there were reports of voter irregularities.

At the time, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, a member of Georgian Dream, called on Zourabichvili to turn over any evidence of rigging to authorities. He said he believed she did not have such evidence.

A fresh wave of protests started on November 28, when Kobakhidze announced a suspension of all negotiations with the European Union on Georgia’s EU accession until 2028.

Police have responded to the protests with force, using water cannons against demonstrators, hundreds of whom have been detained, beaten and treated inhumanely, according to Transparency International Georgia.

In Amaglobeli’s case, the journalist’s legal team says she was mistreated after her second arrest. They say that the police officer whom she slapped was trying to physically abuse her, that he spat in her face and did not let her use the restroom for several hours. Additionally, lawyers were not allowed to see the journalist for three hours.

Amaglobeli faces charges of assaulting a police officer. If found guilty, she could face up to seven years in prison.

Transparency International Georgia has said a video of the interaction shows the slap “lacked sufficient force to cause harm,” and doesn’t meet the standard for a formal charge.

Gulnoza Said of the Committee to Protect Journalists told VOA that it is a “very serious press freedom violation that she is in detention.”

Rachel Denber, deputy director of the Human Rights Watch Europe and Central Asia division, said that, so far, no investigations have taken place into cases of riot police using excessive force or alleged mistreatment of protesters in custody.

“Suddenly, this is where the authorities are putting all of their time and resources and vigor — to punish one person who is a journalist and who has a record of being outspoken,” Denber told VOA.

Tsetskhladze, the journalist’s friend, believes the government’s treatment of Amaglobeli is meant to be a warning for other independent media outlets and journalists in Georgia.

“They are punishing not only Mzia, who slapped a police officer, but also the media outlets she funded, the media in general, journalists and all critical, free people in this country,” he told VOA.

At least 50 journalists have been attacked, obstructed and beaten during the protests. Some were hospitalized and their equipment was damaged, according to the Mapping Media Freedom platform.

This story originated in VOA’s Georgian Service.
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Pentagon chief calls on NATO partners to increase role in Europe’s defense

PENTAGON — U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has called for NATO’s European members to increase their role in the defense of Europe as the United States focuses on defending the alliance’s Pacific flank.

It is a move that he says will likely require European allies to significantly increase defense spending from 2% of GDP to about 5% of GDP.

“We can talk all we want about values. Values are important, but you can’t shoot values, you can’t shoot flags, and you can’t shoot strong speeches. There is no replacement for hard power,” Hegseth told reporters on Thursday at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

Last year, NATO’s European allies collectively spent 2% of their GDP, amounting to about $380 billion, for the first time after setting a 2% defense spending goal in 2014. The U.S. currently spends about 3.5% of its GDP on defense. Canada, the other non-European NATO ally, currently spends about 1.4% of its GDP on defense.

“NATO is a great alliance, the most successful defense alliance in history, but to endure for the future, our partners must do far more for Europe’s defense,” Hegseth said. He emphasized that deterrence of Chinese aggression “in the Pacific is one that really can only be led by the United States.”

He said the U.S. does not seek conflict with China, nor does it feel that conflict with China is inevitable, but he contended the administration must work with allies to ensure deterrence in the Indo-Pacific is “hard power deterrence, not just reputational.”

Russia-Ukraine war

On Wednesday, Hegseth said keeping Ukraine’s pre-invasion boundaries is an “unrealistic objective” in its war against Russian aggression, as was the expectation that Ukraine would join NATO. He advocated for a negotiated end to the war with security guarantees backed by European and non-European troops that would not include U.S. forces.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said Ukraine’s potential membership in NATO and whether it should concede any territory should not be decided before peace talks start, referring to Hegseth’s comments as “concessions” made by the United States.

“Vladimir Putin responds to strength,” Hegseth said on Thursday when asked whether the U.S. was decreasing Ukraine’s leverage.

“No one’s going to get everything that they want, understanding who committed the aggression in the first place,” he added, referring to Putin.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte reiterated his support for higher defense spending and appeared to defend Hegseth’s comments on Ukraine not joining the alliance. Rutte said on Thursday that while NATO must “make sure that Vladimir Putin never ever tries again to attack Ukraine,” he said, “it has never been a promise to Ukraine that as part of a peace deal, they would be part of NATO.”

The European Union’s top diplomat warned that any peace deal struck between the United States and Russia — without Ukraine or the EU — will fail.

“Trump says that the killing should stop. Putin can stop the killing by stopping bombing Ukraine. This is doable if there is a will,” said Kaja Kallas, the EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy. She added that any agreement without Ukraine at the table amounts to appeasement.

Kallas’ comments reflected those of many NATO allies at Thursday’s meeting following U.S. President Donald Trump’s call with Putin and Trump’s signaling that talks on Ukraine between the two were imminent.

After Thursday’s NATO ministerial gathering, Hegseth travels to Poland for what the Pentagon said will be talks with leaders about “bilateral defense cooperation, continued deterrence efforts along NATO’s eastern flank and Poland’s leadership as a model ally in defense investment and burden-sharing in NATO.”

Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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NATO working to keep Baltic Sea’s strategic infrastructure safe 

Northern Europe’s Baltic Sea is bordered by nations including Germany, Russia and Latvia. Many critical cables and pipelines cross the seafloor. But with tensions rising in the region, NATO is looking for ways to ensure all that infrastructure stays safe. Vladislavs Andrejevs has more in this story, narrated by Anna Rice. (Produced by: Vladislavs Andrejevs, Anna Rice )
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Several injured after motorist hits crowd of people in Munich

BERLIN — A motorist has driven a car into a group of people in the German city of Munich, leaving several people injured, police said on Thursday.

The Bild newspaper reported that 15 people had been injured.

The Munich Security Conference is to start on Friday and U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy are scheduled to arrive later Thursday.

A large-scale police operation was underway near the southern city’s central train station.

Police said on X they were able to detain the driver and did not consider him to pose further threat.

The incident appears to have affected people participating in a demonstration linked to a strike organized by the Verdi union, according to the local BR broadcaster.

The union said it did not have any information on the incident. 
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Trump launches diplomatic blitz to end Ukraine war

Following a successful prisoner swap with Russia, U.S. President Donald Trump launched a multifront diplomatic blitz Wednesday to end the Ukraine conflict, saying he would meet with Russia’s leader soon and dispatching a vice president-led team to meet with Ukraine’s leader on Friday. VOA White House correspondent Anita Powell catches up on the latest, from Washington.
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Russia, Ukraine trade blame for IAEA disruptions at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant

KYIV, UKRAINE — Russia and Ukraine on Wednesday accused each other of blocking the rotation of staff from the International Atomic Energy Agency at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine. 

Moscow’s troops seized the facility, Europe’s largest nuclear power station, in the first days of its invasion of Ukraine. Both sides have repeatedly accused the other of risking a potentially devastating nuclear disaster by attacking the site. 

Staff from the U.N. nuclear watchdog have been based there since September 2022 to monitor nuclear safety. 

Fighting meant the IAEA staff could not be swapped out as part of a planned rotation on Wednesday, the second such delay in a week, both Kyiv and Moscow said, trading blame for the incident. 

Inspectors spend around five weeks at the plant in stints before being swapped out in a complex procedure that involves traveling across the front line under supervision from the Russian and Ukrainian militaries. 

Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesman Georgiy Tykhy accused Russia’s army of opening fire near where the planned rotation was taking place, saying Moscow’s goal was to force the IAEA team to travel through Russian-controlled territory and “violate Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” 

Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the Ukrainian army blocked the IAEA team from traveling to an agreed meeting point and were attacking the area with drones, at which point the Russian military withdrew its support team and returned to the station. 

“On their return, the convoy carrying Russian military personnel and IAEA experts … came under attack by drone and mortar strikes,” Zakharova said in a statement. 

The IAEA staff members were supposed to leave the station on Feb. 5 in a rotation that was also delayed. 

IAEA head Rafael Grossi was in both Ukraine and Russia last week, where he discussed the issue of rotations with officials from both countries.
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RFE/RL journalist released from Belarus jail

WASHINGTON — A journalist with VOA’s sister outlet, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, was released from Belarus on Wednesday, after spending more than three years imprisoned in a case that was widely viewed as politically motivated.  

Andrey Kuznechyk, a journalist with RFE/RL’s Belarus service, was released from Belarus on Wednesday, the U.S. special envoy for hostage affairs, Adam Boehler, said. Two other individuals were also released, including a U.S. citizen, but Boehler did not specify their identities.  

RFE/RL President Stephen Capus welcomed Kuznechyk’s release and thanked President Donald Trump, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Lithuanian government for their help in securing the reporter’s release. 

“This is a joyous day for Andrey, his wife, and their two young children. After more than three years apart, this family is together again thanks to President Trump. We are also grateful to Secretary Rubio and his team, and to the Lithuanian government for their support,” Capus said in a statement.  

Boehler said that the release was unilateral, meaning no one was swapped with Belarus in exchange for the prisoners. Boehler attributed the release to Trump’s commitment to securing the freedom of wrongfully detailed Americans abroad.  

“He has made bringing Americans home a top priority,” Boehler said. “The smartest thing you can do to curry favor with the president of the United States is bring Americans home.”  

Kuznechyk had been jailed since November 2021. He was initially sentenced to 10 days in jail on hooliganism charges, which he rejected. When Kuznechyk was due to be released, authorities kept him in prison and added an additional charge of creating an extremist group.

In a trial that lasted only one day, a regional court found Kuznechyk guilty in June 2022 and sentenced him to six years in prison.  

RFE/RL and the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees RFE/RL and VOA, consistently rejected the charges against Kuznechyk and called for his release. 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the prisoners’ release from Belarus “a remarkable victory.” 

Belarus ranks among the worst jailers of journalists in the world. As of early December, at least 31 journalists were jailed there over their work, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.  

Another RFE/RL journalist — Ihar Losik — has been jailed in Belarus since 2020 on charges he and his employer reject.  

“We remain hopeful that our journalist Ihar Losik will also be released and look to the Trump administration for its continued leadership and guidance,” Capus said in a statement. 

Three other RFE/RL journalists are currently jailed in Russian-occupied Crimea, Russia and Azerbaijan, all on charges that are viewed as politically motivated. 

The Belarusian government has embarked on a severe crackdown on independent journalists and other critics ever since longtime President Alexander Lukashenko claimed victory in a 2020 presidential election that was widely viewed as rigged.  

More than 1,200 political prisoners are currently detained in Belarus, according to the rights group Viasna.
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Evacuations in eastern Ukraine’s Pokrovsk as Russian forces inch closer                    

Ukrainian forces are trying to slow down an ongoing Russian advance toward the city of Pokrovsk in Eastern Ukraine’s Dontesk region. The Ukrainian government has been evacuating civilians from the region, but constant shelling is making it dangerous. Kateryna Besedina has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. (Camera: Artyom Kokhan, Anna Rice)  
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