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Spain sees opportunity in African migrant influx, bucking EU trend

Many European Union countries are calling for the bloc to clamp down on migration amid a surge in support for right-wing political parties. But Spain is bucking the trend — and insists Europe’s aging population needs controlled migration to boost its economy. Henry Ridgwell reports. Camera: Alfonso Beato.
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Former Albanian President Meta arrested for alleged corruption

TIRANA, Albania — Albania’s left-wing Freedom Party said Monday its leader and former Albanian President Ilir Meta has been arrested on alleged corruption charges.

Meta, 55, was arrested in the capital, Tirana, by officers with the National Investigation Bureau, according to local media. Local television stations showed masked, plainclothes police officers taking Meta from his vehicle after he returned from neighboring Kosovo ahead of holding a news conference.

The party’s secretary-general, Tedi Blushi, called it “a criminal kidnapping.”

There was no immediate comment from the prosecutor’s office.

After meeting Meta at the police department, his lawyer Genc Gjokutaj said the former president is being investigated for alleged corruption, money laundering and hiding personal income and property.

Meta was Albania’s previous president, serving from 2017-2022. He was being investigated for alleged illegal lobbying in the United States years ago. He and his former wife also have been investigated on allegations of hiding their personal property and income.

Meta has been a vocal opponent of the government of Prime Minister Edi Rama, accusing it of running a “kleptocratic regime” and concentrating all legislative, administrative and judiciary powers in Rama’s hands.

Corruption has been post-communist Albania’s Achilles’ heel, strongly affecting the country’s democratic, economic and social development.

Judicial institutions created with the support of the European Union and the United States have launched several investigations into former senior government officials allegedly involved in corruption. Albania seeks EU membership.

Former prime minister and president Sali Berisha, now a lawmaker and leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, is also accused of corruption and is under house arrest waiting for the trial.

Soon after Meta’s arrest, Romana Vlahutin, EU ambassador to Tirana when the judicial reform was approved in 2016 and now a European Council official, said on social platform X, “Justice reform in full force! There are no untouchables.”
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French government takes new blows over deal to sell painkiller maker to US fund

Paris — French drugmaker Sanofi’s confirmation that it will sell a controlling stake in its consumer health unit to a U.S. investment fund sparked a new political backlash Monday, stoked by fears the deal marks a loss of sovereignty over key medications.  

Paris “must block the sale” using powers to protect strategic sectors, Manuel Bompard, a senior lawmaker in the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party, told the TF1 broadcaster.  

Politicians and unions have torn into Sanofi’s proposed 16-billion-euro ($17.4 billion) deal with U.S. investment fund CD&R for a controlling stake in Opella.  

The subsidiary makes household-name drugs including Doliprane branded paracetamol  whose yellow boxes dominate the French market.  

Under pressure, Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s minority government said it had secured a two-percent stake in Opella for public investment bank Bpifrance and “extremely strong” guarantees against job cuts and offshoring.  

Opella employs over 11,000 workers and operates in 100 countries.  

Sanofi said it is the third-largest business worldwide in the market for over-the-counter medicines, vitamins and supplements.  

CD&R — which has a battery of investments in France — would help build Opella into a “French-headquartered, global consumer healthcare champion,” the pharma giant said in a statement.  

‘Just words’

But with memories of drug shortages during and since the Covid-19 pandemic still raw for many, critics say the defenses are too weak.

A small stake “won’t give the French state a say in strategic decisions” at Opella, said Bompard, whose LFI dominates a left alliance that is the largest opposition group against Barnier and President Emmanuel Macron.  

Thomas Portes, also of the LFI, posted on X that the government had offered “no guarantees, just words.”  

Economy Minister Antoine Armand said a contract between CD&R, Sanofi and the government included maintaining production sites, research and development and Opella’s official headquarters in France, as well as investing at least 70 million euros over five years.  

It covers “keeping up a minimum production volume for Opella’s sensitive products in France,” Armand added, including Doliprane, digestive medication Lanzor and Aspegic branded aspirin.  

There would be financial penalties for closing French production sites, laying off workers or failing to buy from French suppliers.  

That includes Seqens, a company re-establishing production in France of Doliprane’s active ingredient paracetamol.  

“Workers are not at all reassured by the latest developments,” said Johann Nicolas, a CGT union representative at Opella’s Doliprane plant in Lisieux, northern France.  

He added that a picket had throttled production there from around 1.3 million boxes of the drug per day to around 265,000.  

The proposed protections in the deal have also failed to win over even some in the government camp.  

Monday’s guarantees “do not at all indicate a commitment for the long term, whether on investment, supply or jobs,” Charles Rodwell, a lawmaker in Macron’s EPR party who has closely followed the case, told AFP.  

He vowed “painstaking” parliamentary surveillance of government action over the deal including measures to “block” the sale if ministers fall short.

Brand loyalty

Macron said last week that “the government has the instruments needed to protect France” from any unwanted “capital ownership.”  

Emotion over the Opella sales is closely linked to Doliprane.  

Boxes of the non-opioid analgesic against mild to moderate pain and fever often line entire pharmacy walls.  

The drug comes in many doses — from 100 mg for babies to 1,000 mg for adults — and in tablet, capsule, suppository and liquid forms.  

It is so ubiquitous that French people call any paracetamol product Doliprane, even when made by a different manufacturer.  

Sanofi, among the world’s top 12 health care companies, says the planned spinoff is part of a strategy to focus less on over-the-counter medication and more on innovative medicines and vaccines, including for polio, influenza and meningitis.
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Gulen, the powerful cleric accused of orchestrating a Turkish coup, dies 

ISTANBUL — The U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, who built a powerful Islamic movement in Turkey and beyond but spent his later years mired in accusations of orchestrating an attempted coup against Turkish leader Tayyip Erdogan, has died. He was 83. 

Herkul, a website which publishes Gulen’s sermons, said on its X account that Gulen had died on Sunday evening in the U.S. hospital where he was being treated. 

Gulen was a one-time ally of Erdogan but they fell out spectacularly, and Erdogan held him responsible for the 2016 attempted coup in which rogue soldiers commandeered warplanes, tanks and helicopters. Some 250 people were killed in the bid to seize power. 

Gulen, who had lived in self-imposed exile in the United States since 1999, denied involvement in the putsch but his movement was designated as a terrorist group by Turkey. 

Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan confirmed his death, describing him as the leader of a “dark organization” and saying that Turkey’s fight against the group would continue. 

“Our nation’s determination in the fight against terrorism will continue, and this news of his death will never lead us to complacency,” Fidan told a press conference. 

According to its followers, Gulen’s movement – known as “Hizmet” which means “service” in Turkish – seeks to spread a moderate brand of Islam that promotes Western-style education, free markets and interfaith communication. 

Since the failed coup, his movement has been systematically dismantled in Turkey and its international influence has declined. 

Known to his supporters as Hodjaefendi, or respected teacher, Gulen was born in a village in the eastern Turkish province of Erzurum in 1941. The son of an imam, or Islamic preacher, he studied the Koran from infancy. 

In 1959, Gulen was appointed as a mosque imam in the northwestern city of Edirne and came to prominence as a preacher in the 1960s in the western province of Izmir, where he set up student dormitories and would go to tea houses to preach. 

These student houses marked the start of an informal network which would spread in coming decades through education, business, media and state institutions. 

His influence also spread beyond Turkey’s borders to the Turkic republics of Central Asia, the Balkans, Africa and the West through a network of schools. 

Fidan said he hoped Gulen’s death would lift a “spell” over Turkish youth who had taken a path of “betrayal” against their country under the pretense of religious values. “This is not a good road,” he added. 

Former Erdogan ally  

Gulen had been a close ally of Erdogan and his AK Party, but growing tensions in their relationship exploded in December 2013 when corruption investigations targeting ministers and officials close to Erdogan came to light. 

Prosecutors and police from Gulen’s Hizmet movement were widely believed to be behind the investigations and an arrest warrant was issued for Gulen in 2014. His movement was designated as a terrorist group two years later. 

Soon after the 2016 coup, Erdogan described Gulen’s network as traitors and “like a cancer,” vowing to root them out wherever they are. Hundreds of schools, companies, media outlets and associations linked to him were shut down and assets seized. 

Gulen condemned the coup attempt “in the strongest terms.” 

“As someone who suffered under multiple military coups during the past five decades, it is especially insulting to be accused of having any link to such an attempt,” he said. 

In a post-coup crackdown, which the government said targeted Gulen’s followers, at least 77,000 people were arrested and 150,000 state workers including teachers, judges and soldiers suspended under emergency rule. 

Companies and media outlets regarded as linked to Gulen were seized by the state or closed down. The government said its actions were justified by the gravity of the threat posed to the state by the coup. 

Gulen was also reviled by Turkey’s opposition, which saw his network as having conspired over decades to undermine the secular foundations of the republic. 

Ankara long sought to have him extradited from the United States. 

Speaking in his gated compound in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains, Gulen said in a 2017 Reuters interview he had no plans to flee the United States to avoid extradition. Even then, he appeared frail, keeping his longtime doctor close at hand. 
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Moldova’s EU referendum goes to wire after Sandu decries vote meddling

CHISINAU, Moldova — A knife-edge majority of 50.17% voted “yes” in Moldova’s pivotal referendum on joining the European Union, nearly final results showed on Monday, after President Maia Sandu said Sunday’s twin votes had been marred by “unprecedented” outside interference.

The tight finish – with fewer than 1.5% of the ballots still to be counted – is far from a resounding endorsement of the pro-EU path that Sandu has pursued over four years at the helm of the small ex-Soviet republic tugged between Russia and the West.

A presidential election, which took place simultaneously, handed Sandu 42% of the vote while her main rival, former prosecutor-general Alexandr Stoianoglo won 26%, setting up a tightly fought run-off between the two on Nov. 3.

The votes, which took place after a slew of allegations of election meddling, were seen as a test of the southeast European nation’s commitment to join the European Union and escape Moscow’s orbit for good.

The tight referendum result puts Sandu in a weaker position going into the second round since she has championed EU integration.

Moldova began the long process of formal accession talks in June and under Sandu has aimed to join by 2030. Ties with Moscow have deteriorated as Sandu condemned the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine and diversified energy supply away from Russia.

Stoianoglo has said that, if he comes to power, he would develop a “balanced” foreign policy involving ties with the EU, Russia, United States and China. He boycotted Sunday’s referendum, calling it a ruse to boost Sandu’s haul at the election.

‘Clear evidence’

In the early hours of Monday, Sandu addressed Moldovan citizens, saying there was “clear evidence” that criminal groups working together with “foreign forces hostile to our national interests” had sought to buy off 300,000 votes.

She said this amounted to “fraud of unprecedented scale”.

“Criminal groups… have attacked our country with tens of millions of euros, lies and propaganda, using the most disgraceful means to keep our citizens and our nation trapped in uncertainty and instability,” she said.

While still waiting for the final results, she said, Moldova would “respond with firm decisions,” without elaborating.

In the run-up to the vote, authorities made repeated statements alleging concerted attempts to meddle in the vote by fugitive tycoon Ilan Shor, who lives in Russia.

Russia, which accuses Sandu’s government of “Russophobia,” denied interfering, while Shor denies wrongdoing.

The police accused Shor, who was sentenced to jail in absentia for fraud and a role in the theft of $1 billion, of trying to pay off a network of at least 130,000 voters to vote “no” and support “our candidate” at the election.

Shor has openly offered on social media to pay Moldovans to convince others to vote in a certain way and said that was a legitimate use of money that he earned.

In the early hours of Monday, he declared Moldovans had voted against the referendum.

“Today I congratulate you; you lost the battle,” he added, addressing Sandu simply as Maia.

Ahead of the vote, authorities took down online resources they said hosted disinformation, announced they had uncovered a program in Russia to train Moldovans to stage mass unrest and opened criminal cases against allies of Shor.

As the early results came in late on Sunday, some 57% of Moldovans initially appeared to have voted “no” in the referendum. As more ballots were counted, the “yes” vote gradually rose, overtaking “no” early on Monday morning.

Political analyst Valeriu Pasha said the “yes” vote had edged ahead only because of unusually high voter turnout among the Moldovan diaspora living abroad, who largely support EU integration.

“With such elections, in which dozens of (percentage points) can be bought, it will be very difficult for us going forward. But we must learn lessons and learn to fight this phenomenon,” he said.
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Russian drone attack damages Kyiv residential buildings

Russian drone attacks injured at least one person in Ukraine’s capital, officials in Kyiv said Monday.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram falling debris from drones shot down by Ukrainian air defenses damaged several residential buildings.

Serhii Popko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration, said on Telegram that as many as a dozen Russian drones were involved in the attack, but that all of them were destroyed.

Russian drones also targeted Mykolaiv, in southern Ukraine. Governor Vitalii Kim said Monday on Telegram that air defenses downed three drones overnight.

Russia’s Defense Ministry reported Monday it destroyed 18 Ukrainian drones launched in overnight attacks.

Eleven of the drones were shot down over the Rostov region, while another four were destroyed over Bryansk, two over Kursk and one over Oryol.

Officials in Kursk reported there were no casualties and no damage reported from the attacks.
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Wounded Ukranian war vets train for wintry sports competition

In February, Canada will host the first-ever winter Invictus Games, an athletic competition for wounded and injured veterans from around the world. This year, 550 athletes from 25 countries will compete in both traditional Invictus Games sports as well as new winter sports. Ukraine will be represented by 35 veterans. Tetiana Kukurika caught up with one of them in this story narrated by Anna Rice.
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Brazil’s Lula cancels Russia trip for BRICS summit after head injury

Brasilia, Brazil — Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Sunday canceled his trip to Russia for the BRICS summit, following medical advice to temporarily avoid long-haul flights after hurting his head in an accident at home.

In a statement, the presidential office said Lula, 78, will now participate in the BRICS meeting via videoconference. He was initially scheduled to depart at 5 p.m. on Sunday.

According to a medical report issued by the Sirio Libanes Hospital in Brasilia, Lula suffered a laceration to the “occipital region” in the back of his head on Saturday.

The report said Lula “was advised to avoid long-distance air travel but is otherwise able to carry out his regular duties.”

The government said in a post on X that Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira has been designated to lead the Brazilian delegation in the BRICS summit, departing later on Sunday.

The diplomatic forum founded 15 years ago by major emerging markets Brazil, Russia, India, China has since expanded to include South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates.

Congresswoman Gleisi Hoffmann, president of Lula’s Workers Party, posted on social media that she had spoken with the president and that “he is doing very well, just avoiding a long trip.”
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Ukraine’s Zelenskyy seeks strong reaction to North Korean involvement in war

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday he was seeking a strong reaction from countries who have acknowledged that North Korea is becoming more involved in Russia’s more than 2-1/2-year-old war against Ukraine.

Speaking in his nightly video address, Zelenskyy said there was ample satellite and video evidence that North Korea was sending not only equipment to Russia, but also soldiers to be prepared for deployment.

“I am grateful to those leaders and representatives of states who do not close their eyes and speak frankly about this cooperation for the sake of a larger war,” he said. “We expect a normal, honest, strong reaction from our partners on this.”

Zelenskyy said greater North Korean involvement could only be harmful to everyone.

“Unfortunately, instability and threats can significantly increase after North Korea becomes trained for modern warfare,” he said.

“If the world remains silent now and we have to engage soldiers from North Korea on the front line in the same way we have to defend ourselves from (Iranian) Shahed drones, this will certainly benefit no one in the world and only prolong the war.”

North Korea’s actions, he said, meant “in effect yet another country entering the war against Ukraine.”

Zelenskyy last week accused North Korea of deploying officers alongside Russia and preparing to send thousands of troops to help Moscow’s war effort. South Korea’s spy agency said on Friday North Korea had dispatched 1,500 special forces troops to Russia’s Far East for training.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Saturday he could not confirm reports that North Korea has sent troops to Russia ahead of a possible deployment, but said such a move would be concerning, if true. NATO chief Mark Rutte said on Thursday there was no evidence of Pyongyang’s presence at this stage.

The involvement of North Korean regular troops to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would be a serious escalation of the war, France and Ukraine’s foreign ministers said at a joint press conference in Kyiv on Saturday.
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Serbia’s president talks with Putin and vows he’ll never impose sanctions on Russia

BELGRADE — European Union candidate Serbia will continue to refuse to impose sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine despite Western pressure, Serbia’s leader said after his telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday.

Populist Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Instagram that he believes the call, what he said was his first in more than two years with the Russian president, will help “further development of relations and trust between Russia and Serbia.”

“We talked as people who have known each other for a long time, as friends, and the ten-minute conversation was marked by a personal note, and we also talked about those who are weak [pro-Western] leaders,” Vucic said.

He did not say whether he would accept an earlier invitation by Putin to attend a BRICS summit of emerging economies, led by Russia and China, in Kazan later this week.

Although formally seeking E.U. membership, traditional Russian Slavic ally Serbia has refused to join Western sanctions against Russia over the war in Ukraine though it has reluctantly condemned Moscow’s aggression. Vucic has said that imposing the sanctions wasn’t in Serbia’s national interest.

He said Sunday he expects criticism from the West of his conversation with Putin, but stated that “Serbia is a sovereign country which makes its own decisions.”

He also thanked Russia “for providing sufficient quantities of gas for Serbia at favorable prices.” Serbia was almost completely dependent on the Russian gas but has recently agreed to start to diversify its supplies.

Serbia, which was never part of the Soviet bloc, on Sunday marked the 80th anniversary of the liberation of its capital Belgrade from the Nazi World War II occupation, which was accomplished mostly thanks to former Yugoslavia’s communist partisans, but also the Soviet Red Army.

Belgrade’s nationalist authorities marked the liberation date with a display of the pro-Russian sentiment, with thousands marching through Belgrade waving Russian flags and chanting slogans.

At a meeting marking the anniversary, Vucic delivered a speech in the Russian language, which he said is a sign of respect for the Red Army, without which “there would not have been the liberation of Belgrade.”
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Iran protests EU support for UAE over disputed islands 

Tehran — Iran summoned the ambassador of Hungary, whose country holds the rotating European Union presidency, to protest a joint E.U.-Gulf Cooperation Council statement on islands controlled by Iran but claimed by the UAE, state media reported Sunday. 

The statement, published after the first summit between the two regional blocs on Wednesday, said, “We call on Iran to end its occupation of the three islands of the United Arab Emirates, Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb and Abu Musa, which constitutes a violation of the sovereignty of the UAE and the principles of the Charter of the U.N.” 

The islands located near the Strait of Hormuz, a globally vital shipping lane, have been disputed between the United Arab Emirates and Iran for decades.  

Tehran has controlled the islands since 1971 at the end of British imperial rule over them. 

“The Hungarian ambassador was summoned to the Iranian foreign ministry to protest against the repetition of certain baseless claims in the joint declaration from the leaders of the EU and the GCC,” the official IRNA news agency reported.   

The foreign ministry called the EU’s stance “thoughtless, irresponsible and void of any legal basis,” IRNA added.  

On Monday, the European Union accused Tehran of supplying missiles and drones to Russia for use in its war against Ukraine and imposed fresh sanctions on the country. 

In April 2023, Iran appointed an ambassador to the UAE for the first time in nearly eight years as part of improving diplomatic relations with Gulf Arab states. 
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