Yearly Archive 31/12/17

New Zealand, Australia, and surrounding Pacific Islands were among the first places to ring in 2018 with fireworks displays, parties, and other festivities. Nearly 1.5 million people gathered to watch a rainbow fireworks display above Sydney’s iconic Harbour Bridge and opera house.
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Thousands braved a frigid New York night to celebrate the start of 2018 in Times Square, an annual celebration that dates back to 1904.

Tarana Burke, a social activist who started the #MeToo movement to draw attention to sexual abuse, pushed the button that started the famed ball drop – a hallmark of the New York celebration for 110 years.2017 saw a sea change in attitudes and awareness of sexual assault and sexual harassment, as millions of people used the hashtag to show how pervasive abuse is in the wake of accusations made against dozens of high profile men, including celebrities, members of Congress and business leaders.

“We need to go into the new year as a new beginning, with a new set of commitments to a better world,” Burke told the New York Daily News.

As they do each year, the crowd counted down as the crystal ball slid down a pole, arriving at the bottom as 2018 began, accompanied by confetti and fireworks. 

Hundreds of thousands of people – watched over by thousands of police and other security personnel – crowded the square, despite temperatures around -12 C (10 degrees Fahrenheit). 

“Our toes are frozen, so we’re just dealing with it by dancing,” Remle Scott told the Associated Press. She traveled to New York with her boyfriend from San Diego to ring in the new year. 

The frosty festivities in Times Square included performances by Mariah Carey, Sugarland and Nick Jonas.

Fireworks around the world

In London, fireworks and the sound of Big Ben – the massive bell in the Elizabeth Tower clock – welcomed the start of 2018 for about 100,000 revelers near the River Thames.Big Ben has been silent since August, when a renovation project on the clock began.It’s not scheduled to return to regular service for about four years.

Fireworks were also part of the celebrations in Paris and Moscow.In the Russian capitol, fireworks lit up the sky over the Kremlin, while in Paris the display was held at the Arc de Triomphe.

Thousands gathered around Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbor to watch a 10-minute musical firework display, which included “shooting stars” fired from rooftops and revelers dancing to “Auld Lang Syne.”

In the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, over 400 couples participated in a New Year’s mass wedding provided for free by authorities.

Nearly 1.5 million people gathered to watch a rainbow fireworks display above Sydney’s iconic Harbour Bridge and the opera house, as the country celebrated legalizing gay marriage.

Security tight

In preparation for celebrations in cities around the world, hundreds of thousands of law enforcement, military and security officials are being deployed to keep New Year’s Eve revelers safe.

In Australia, officials were out in full force on the ground, air and sea as part of the largest security operation in the country. Police in Melbourne last month arrested a man for planning to shoot revelers on New Year’s Eve.

In the United States, New York City officials used two-step screening, snipers, street closures and specially trained dogs to secure Times Square.
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Catalonia’s fugitive former president has called for Spanish authorities to open negotiations regarding the restitution of what he calls his “legitimate government.”

Carles Puigdemont said via social media channels from Brussels on Saturday that Spain should “recognize the election results of Dec. 21 and start negotiating politically with the legitimate government of Catalonia.”

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy deposed Puigdemont and his Cabinet after Catalonia’s regional parliament voted in favor of a declaration of independence from the rest of the country in October.

But pro-secession parties, including one led by Puigdemont, won the most seats in elections last week.

Puigdemont fled to Belgium to avoid a judicial investigation into suspicions of rebellion by him and his government. He did not say Saturday if he plans to return to Spain, where an arrest warrants awaits him.

Rajoy said Friday that he plans to convene Catalonia’s newly elected parliament Jan. 17.

In-house rules of Catalonia’s parliament require that a candidate to form a government be present.
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A group of Polish mountaineers set off for northern Pakistan on Sunday to attempt to be the first to scale K2, the world’s second highest peak, in wintertime.

K2, in the Karakorum mountains along the border between China and Pakistan, is notorious for high winds, steep and icy slopes — and high fatality rates for climbers. In winter months, scant snowfall means the summit approach can turn into bare ice.

More than 70 people have died climbing the peak, many of them at the Bottleneck, where a wrong step can send a climber hurtling off the South Face, where bodies are unlikely to be recovered.

Team member Adam Bielecki, 34, told Reuters that the chance to make history is a “strong motivation” for the Polish group.

Polish climbers have written a “beautiful chapter” of exploring peaks of more than 8,000 meters (26,247 feet), and scaling K2 in winter would “the last chapter of this book.”

The Polish team includes 13 mountaineers led by Krzysztof Wielicki, 67, who in 2003 headed a winter expedition of K2 that was unable to clear the 8,000 meter threshold.

K2, slightly shorter than Mount Everest, is 8,611 meters (28,251 feet) high.

Wielicki told Reuters that his team would begin their ascent on Jan. 8 or 9 and, if successful, expect to return to base camp by mid-March.

Pakistan is a hot destination for climbers. It rivals Nepal for the number of peaks higher 7,000 meters (22,966 feet) and it has five of the world’s 14 summits higher than 8,000 meters.

Bielecki said the group expects to be away from home for around three months.

“If you ask me what’s the hardest part of the expedition or what I fear the most, it’s actually the separation from my family,” he said.
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Prime Minister Theresa May said 2018 would be a year of “renewed confidence and pride” for Britain as it confronts the challenges of negotiating Brexit, in her New Year’s message out Sunday.

Divorce talks between London and Brussels are set to move on to transition arrangements, trade and security next year as Britain prepares to leave the European Union in March 2019.

May said 2017 had been a year of progress for Britain as it struck agreements on its departure bill, Northern Ireland and the rights of EU citizens, in the first phase of Brexit negotiations.

“I believe 2018 can be a year of renewed confidence and pride in our country,” the premier said, “a year in which we continue to make good progress towards a successful Brexit deal, an economy that’s fit for the future, and a stronger and fairer society for everyone.

“And whatever challenges we may face, I know we will overcome them by standing united as one proud union of nations and people.”

However, the British Chambers of Commerce, which represents thousands of firms across the country, warned that business was losing patience while waiting for clarity on what will happen once Britain leaves the EU.

“Businesses want answers,” director general Adam Marshall told The Observer newspaper. “Getting the twin challenges of Brexit and the economic fundamentals right will require leadership, consistency and clarity — after a year in which business has been dismayed by what it sees as division and disorganization.”

Vow on harassment, prejudice

May said 2017 had been a year of progress in which her Brexit objectives had been pursued with a steady purpose.

“Making a success of Brexit is crucial, but it will not be the limit of our ambitions,” she said.

The prime minister said she wanted a “balanced approach” to public spending, reducing Britain’s debt pile while investing in schools, hospitals and state health care.

May also said she wanted to sweep harassment from the workplace and “eliminate all prejudice and discrimination from our society.”

Internationally, she said Britain would work to tackle extremism, climate change and plastic waste in the oceans.

Meanwhile, opposition Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn said the prospect of a “new Britain” was “closer than ever before.”

“We are a government in waiting, while the Conservatives are weak and divided and stuck in an outdated rut,” the veteran leftist said.

Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable used his New Year’s message to push for a second referendum on EU membership.

“There’s still time to offer people the choice of an exit from Brexit,” he said.
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At least 81 reporters were killed doing their jobs this year, while violence and harassment against media staff has skyrocketed, the world’s biggest journalists’ organization says.

In its annual “Kill Report,” seen by The Associated Press, the International Federation of Journalists said the reporters lost their lives in targeted killings, car bomb attacks and crossfire incidents around the world.

More than 250 journalists were in prison in 2017.

The number of deaths as of December 29 was the lowest in a decade, down from 93 in 2016. The largest number were killed in Mexico, but many also died in conflict zones in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.

The IFJ suspected but could not officially confirm that at least one other journalist was killed Thursday in an attack by an Islamic State suicide bomber on a Shiite cultural center in Kabul, in which at least 41 people died.

IFJ President Philippe Leruth said that while the drop in deaths “represents a downward trend, the levels of violence in journalism remain unacceptably high.”

He said the IFJ finds it “most disturbing that this decrease cannot be linked to any measure by governments to tackle the impunity for these crimes.”

Eight women journalists were killed, two in European democracies – Kim Wall in Denmark, who died on the submarine of an inventor she was writing about, and Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia who was blown up by a bomb placed in her car.

Beyond the deaths, the IFJ warned that “unprecedented numbers of journalists were jailed, forced to flee, that self-censorship was widespread and that impunity for the killings, harassment, attacks and threats against independent journalism was running at epidemic levels.”

Turkey, where official pressure on the media has been ramped up since a failed coup attempt in July 2016, is becoming notorious for putting reporters behind bars. Some 160 journalists are jailed in Turkey –  two-thirds of the global total – the report said.

The organization also expressed concern about India, the world’s largest democracy, where it said that attacks on journalists are being motivated by violent populism.

Countries with the highest numbers of media killings:

Mexico: 13

Afghanistan: 11

Iraq: 11

Syria: 10

India: 6

Philippines: 4

Pakistan: 4

Nigeria: 3

Somalia: 3

Honduras: 3

 
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Russian news outlet Interfax is reporting that a suspect in Wednesday’s St. Petersburg bombing was arrested on Saturday.

Interfax reported that “the organizer and direct perpetrator who triggered an improvised explosive device on December 27 in a supermarket in St. Petersburg was arrested during a special operation by the FSB,” the Russian security service.

The report said the suspect was handed over to the Russian Investigative Committee for further action. No other details were given.

Wednesday’s blast from a homemade bomb injured at least 13 people. Militant group Islamic State claimed responsibility for the blast, according to the SITE intelligence group, which monitors IS statements.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that the attack was an act of terrorism.

Putin made the assertion at the Kremlin during an awards ceremony for Russian servicemen who served in Syria. He did not provide any further details.

Investigators initially said they were treating the case as an act of attempted murder.  

Health officials said none of the victims suffered life-threatening injuries.

 
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Russia’s highest court has upheld election officials’ decision to bar opposition leader Alexei Navalny from running for president in March’s election.

The Supreme Court on Saturday turned down Navalny’s appeal against the Central Election Commission’s move, saying that the decision to bar him from the race fully conforms to law.

President Vladimir Putin, whose approval ratings top 80 percent, is set to easily win a fourth term in the March 18 vote.

Navalny has campaigned for the presidency all year despite an implicit ban on his candidacy due to a fraud conviction seen by many as politically driven. Election officials formally barred him from the ballot Monday.

Navalny responded to the ban by calling for a boycott of the vote. The Kremlin said authorities will look into whether such a call violates the law.

 
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Russia has reported an outbreak of highly pathogenic H5N2 bird flu on a farm in the central region of Kostromskaya Oblast that led to the deaths of more than 660,000 birds, the Paris-based World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) said Friday.

The virus killed more than 44,000 birds in an outbreak first detected on December 17, the OIE said, citing a report from the Russian Ministry of Agriculture.

The rest of the 663,500 birds on the farm were slaughtered, it said in the report. It did not specify the type of birds that were infected.

It is the first outbreak of the H5N2 strain in Russia this year, but the country has been facing regular outbreaks of H5N8 since early December last year, with the last one reported to the OIE detected late November.

Bird flu has led to the deaths or culling of more than 2.6 million birds on farms between December last year and November this year, a report posted on the OIE website showed.

Neither the H5N2 or H5N8 strains has been found in humans.

The virulence of highly pathogenic bird flu viruses has prompted countries to bar poultry imports from infected countries in earlier outbreaks.
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Kidnappers in Ukraine have released an employee at a United Kingdom-registered cryptocurrency exchange after getting more than $1 million in bitcoins as ransom, an adviser to the Ukrainian interior minister told Reuters on Friday.

Pavel Lerner, a leading analyst and expert in blockchains, or decentralized public ledgers, was abducted by unknown masked people on December 26, according to a statement by his company, EXMO Finance, on its website.

“This is the first such case in Ukraine linked to bitcoins,” Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, said in a phone text message.

It was unclear who paid the ransom. Lerner’s work at EXMO did not involve access to the financial assets of its users, the company said, adding that the platform was operating normally.

“At the moment, he is safe, and there was no physical harm inflicted on him,” the statement said.  “Nevertheless, Pavel is currently in a state of major stress. Therefore, he will not provide any official comments in the coming days.”

News of the release came as bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies rebounded after two days of losses partly related to regulators toughening rules on digital currencies in an effort to curb excessive speculation. Many digital currencies surged in value this year.

Balaclavas

Strana.ua, a local news website, had earlier reported that six gun-toting men in dark clothing and balaclavas had snatched Lerner and pushed him into a minibus with stolen number plates.

Police have begun a criminal investigation after a man was kidnapped in the Obolon district of Kyiv, Oksana Blyshchyk, the Kyiv police spokeswoman, said by phone without revealing the name of the victim.

EXMO has 900,000 users as of December 2017, according to its website.

“We would like to note that the story of Pavel’s abduction has overgrown with rumors that might tamper with the official investigation,” EXMO said in its statement. “That said, EXMO currently refrains from any comments or suggestions of own versions of the possible scenario, in the nearest future.”

Separately, the company announced Thursday that it had been hit by a denial-of-service attack.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law ratifying an agreement enabling Russia to expand operations at its naval facility in the Syrian port of Tartus.

The document was posted on the official website for Russian legislation after Putin signed it Friday. 

It could help cement what Putin has said would be a “permanent” Russian presence at the Tartus facility and the Hmeimim air base, key platforms for Russia’s campaign backing Syria’s government in the nearly seven-year war in the Middle Eastern country.

The agreement, signed in Damascus in January 2017, allows for the Russian navy to expand the technical support and logistics facility at Tartus, which is Moscow’s only naval foothold in the Mediterranean.

It allows Russia to keep up to 11 warships, including nuclear-powered vessels, at Tartus at any time for the next 49 years. The deal is to be prolonged automatically for 25-year periods upon its expiration.

It also allows Russian ships to enter Syria’s territorial waters, internal waters and ports, to use the Tartus facility free of charge.

The agreement also provides Russian military personnel at the facility with immunity and regulates the status of the military personnel and members of their families there.

Critical Russian support

Russia has given President Bashar al-Assad’s government crucial support throughout the war, which began with a crackdown on pro-democracy protests in 2011 and has resulted in hundreds of thousands of people killed and millions driven from their homes.

Moscow helped Assad avoid possible defeat by starting a campaign of airstrikes in September 2015, in many cases using Hmeimim as a base. It has also launched strikes from warships in the Mediterranean.

During a visit to the air base on December 11, Putin declared victory over “the most combat-capable international terrorist group” — a reference to the extremist group Islamic State — and announced a partial withdrawal of Russian troops.

Western officials say that the Russian campaign, particularly in its earlier stages, has focused heavily on targeting rebels seeking Assad’s ouster rather than IS militants.

Putin said on Thursday that more than 48,000 Russian military personnel have served in the operation in Syria, and that the facilities at Hmeimim and Tartus would continue to operate “on a permanent basis.”

With IS in retreat and diplomats pressing ahead with efforts to forge a political solution, analysts say Russia is eager to make its position in Syria as strong as possible in order to wield influence on future developments.
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