ISLAMABAD: Pakistani authorities freed nearly 669 supporters of an outlawed radical group, hours after it agreed to end a week of violent protests following talks with the government.
Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan’s leader, however, will remain behind bars with charges pending against him, the country’s interior minister said Wednesday. Saad Rizvi was arrested April 12 after threatening protests if the government did not expel France’s ambassador over the publication in France of controversial cartoons depicting Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.
Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad for the first time acknowledged that eight supporters of the hard-line militant group were killed in violence that broke out April 12 after Rizvi’s arrest.
Ahmad said five police officers were “martyred” and 800 were injured in the clashes with Rizvi’s supporters. He made his remarks to foreign journalists along with Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry and Minister for Human Rights Shireen Mazari in the capital, Islamabad.
Rizvi faces a murder charge after police officers died in the clashes with his supporters. Ahmed said Rizvi could approach the courts to seek relief. He said Rizvi’s supporters ended an anti-France rally overnight in Lahore after talks with the government.
His comments came a day after a lawmaker from the ruling party kicked off a debate in the National Assembly, which will recommend whether the French ambassador should be expelled over the publication of the controversial cartoons.
The tensions originated last year when France’s president defended as a freedom of speech issue the publication of caricatures of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad by a satirical newspaper, drawing condemnation from across the Muslim world. Rizvi’s group since then has demanded French envoy’s expulsion.
Pakistan frees 669 men from radical group as it ends rallies
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Pakistan frees 669 men from radical group as it ends rallies
- Rizvi faces a murder charge after police officers died in the clashes with his supporters
- His supporters ended an anti-France rally overnight in Lahore after talks with the government
Russians fighting more intensely despite ceasefire talk, Ukraine commander says
"Despite loud statements about readiness to cease fire for the May holidays, the occupiers have significantly increased the intensity of combat actions, focusing their main efforts on the Pokrovsk direction," Syrskyi said on Telegram after working with brigades holding Ukraine's defence in the area.
France says Bessent receptive to idea of zero reciprocal tariffs
PARIS: US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is receptive to the idea of zero reciprocal tariffs between France and the United States, French finance minister Eric Lombard said, as France and the European Union continue tariff talks with the US
“He told me that this was not out of reach,” Lombard told Sud Radio on Wednesday as he summarised talks he had held with Bessent.
“We want to get back to zero tariffs. Our American partners have been softening their position,” he added.
Greece’s dark past is uncovered after 33 bodies are found in a civil war-era mass grave
- War-era battles between Western-backed government forces and left-wing insurgents, a brutal conflict with assassination squads, child abductions and mass displacements
- Descendants have been coming to the site in recent weeks, leaving flowers and asking authorities to conduct DNA testing
THESSALONIKI: Workers were installing benches at a park in the ancient Greek port city of Thessaloniki when their excavator pushed brown soil off a fragile white skull.
They turned off the motorized equipment and set to work with pickaxes and shovels. The crew found two skeletons, then more. By March, 33 sets of bones lay in a tight cluster of unmarked burial pits in the shadow of a Byzantine fortress.
“We found many bullets in the heads, the skulls,” supervising engineer Haris Charismiadis said, standing on earth overturned by four months of digging.
It’s common to find ancient remains or objects in Greece. But hulking Yedi Kule castle was a prison where Communist sympathizers were tortured and executed during Greece’s 1946–49 Civil War. Tens of thousands died in the early Cold War-era battles between Western-backed government forces and left-wing insurgents, a brutal conflict with assassination squads, child abductions and mass displacements.
Greece’s archaeological service cleared the site for development because the bones are less than 100 years old. But authorities in Neapolis-Sykies, a suburb of the coastal city of Thessaloniki, pressed on with excavation, saying the chance find has “great historical and national importance.”
Descendants have been coming to the site in recent weeks, leaving flowers and asking authorities to conduct DNA testing “so they can retrieve the remains of their grandfather, great-grandfather or uncle,” said Simos Daniilidis, who has served as Neapolis-Sykies’ mayor since 1994.
As many as 400 Yedi Kule prisoners were executed, according to historians and the Greek Communist Party. Items found with the bodies — a woman’s shoe, a handbag, a ring — offer glimpses into the lives cut short.
Wartime legacy
For the families of slain pro-Communist Greeks, the find in the Park of National Resistance is reviving a wartime legacy kept dormant to avoid reigniting old animosities. The small site has become Greece’s first Civil War mass grave to be exhumed.
Government forces executed 19-year-old Agapios Sachinis after he refused to sign a declaration renouncing his political beliefs.
“These are not simple matters,” his namesake nephew said during a recent visit to the site.
“It’s about carrying inside you not just courage, but values and dignity you won’t compromise — not even to save your own life,” said Agapios Sachinis, 78.
A retired Communist city council member, Sachinis was imprisoned in the 1960s for his political activity during the dictatorship. Today, Greece’s Communist Party belongs to the political mainstream, largely thanks to its role in the country’s WWII resistance.
If Sachinis’ uncle’s remains are identified, he said, he will cremate them and keep the ashes at his home.
“I want Agapios close to me, at least while I’m alive,” he said.
Cold War playbook
Greece’s Civil War began in the wake of World War II. Coming after continent-wide destruction, it quickly lost international attention but the conflict marked a turning point: US President Harry Truman’s policy of anti-communist intervention — the Truman Doctrine — was presented to Congress in 1947 as a means to direct funds and military support to Greece.
Etched on the newly excavated bones in Thessaloniki, then, is a playbook that went on to produce decades of repression, societal divisions and more unmarked graves in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Governments later addressing the Cold War-era abuses and atrocities faced a painful choice: To unearth the past — as attempted with investigative commissions in Eastern Europe and many Latin American countries — or suppress it for fear of fresh division.
Greek emergency laws were gradually lifted and only fully abolished in 1989. Records of summary trials and executions were never made public. No political force pushed for the excavation of suspected burial sites.
Politicians still use highly cautious language when addressing the past and the Thessaloniki discovery was met with a subdued public reaction. The find has not been directly addressed by the country’s center-right government – a reminder that many Greeks still find it easier to walk past the country’s ghosts than confront them.
Decades ago, the neighborhood park in Thessaloniki — a densely populated port city of a million with ruins from the ancient Greek, Roman and Ottoman eras, with historically strong Balkan and Jewish influences — was a field on the outskirts of the city. Today, it’s frequented by retirees and ringed by apartment buildings filled with middle-class families. During construction, residents whispered that bones had been discovered when foundations were laid, but no inquiry was conducted.
‘Flowers of their generation’
Executions by army firing squads extended into the 1950s and were publicly announced, but graves were unmarked and secret. Author and historian Spyros Kouzinopoulos, a Thessaloniki native, spent decades researching the executions at Yedi Kule, including the indignities endured by prisoners in their final hours.
After a military tribunal issued a death sentence, the chief guard would take the condemned prisoner to solitary confinement in tiny cells barely big enough to stand. Many would use their last hours to write letters to their families. At dawn, the chief guard and two others would retrieve the prisoner and hand them over to the firing squad. Most were loaded onto trucks to avoid attracting public attention. Sometimes they were led to their death on foot.
Most of the victims were barely adults — youth Kouzinopoulos called “flowers of their generation.”
Two 17-year-old schoolgirls, Efpraxia Nikolaidou and Eva Kourouzidou, were executed while wearing their uniforms, he said.
“It shook me to the core,” Kouzinopoulos said.
DNA testing
City officials are taking steps to conduct DNA testing on the remains, and urging families of the missing to submit genetic material. That way, the bodies can be identified and returned to relatives.
Agapios Sachinis, the septuagenarian whose uncle was executed, is among those eager to provide DNA.
Mayor Daniilidis has ordered an expansion of the dig to other parts of the park in coming weeks.
“We must send a message,” he said. “Never again.”
Vietnam celebrates 50 years since war’s end with focus on peace and unity
- The Embassy in Hanoi said US consul general in Ho Chi Minh City Susan Burns had attended the event
- The future of those projects is now at risk because of the Trump administration’s broad cuts to USAID
HO CHI MINH: Vietnam on Wednesday celebrated the 50th anniversary of the end of the war with the United States and the formation of its modern nation with a military parade and a focus on a peaceful future.
The fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975 marked the end of a Vietnam divided into the communist North and US-allied South, and the country’s top official told crowds the past decades had led to ever increasing unity.
“All the Vietnamese are the descendants of Vietnam. They have the rights to live and work, to have freedom to pursue happiness and love in this country,” said To Lam, the Vietnam Communist Party’s general secretary.
“In a spirit of closing the past, respecting differences, aiming for the future, the whole party, the people and the army vow to make Vietnam become a country of peace, unity, prosperity and development,” he added.
Thousands camped overnight on the streets of the former South Vietnamese capital, which was renamed Ho Chi Minh City after it fell to North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops, to get the best vantage point for the parade. Many lingered on the streets later in the afternoon and ate picnics while waiting for drone and fireworks shows scheduled for the evening.
“Now it’s time for peace,” said spectator Nguyen Thi Hue, a city resident. “Peace is the dream that everyone in the world wants.”
One float carried the Lac bird, Vietnam’s emblem, another a portrait of Ho Chi Minh.
Chinese, Laotian and Cambodian troops marched behind Vietnamese army formations, including some wearing uniforms similar to what was worn by northern Vietnamese troops during the war. Helicopters carrying the national flag and jets flew over the parade near Independence Palace, where a North Vietnamese tank smashed through the gates on the final day of the war.
Sitting next to Vietnam’s leader were Cambodia’s former leader Hun Sen and Laotian Communist Party General Secretary Thongloun Sisoulith.
To Lam said beyond a victory over the US and South Vietnam, the fall of Saigon was a “glorious landmark” that ended a 30-year fight for independence that began with the fight to oust French colonial troops.
He said Vietnam owes its position in the world today to support from the Soviet Union, China and solidarity from Laos and Cambodia, as well as “progressive” people all over the world including the US, he said.
Vietnam’s changing global approach
The emphasis on reconciliation and not, like previous years, on military victory reflected how Vietnam was approaching the changing tides of the global economy and geopolitics today, said Nguyen Khac Giang, an analyst at Singapore’s ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute. He added that the Vietnam War remains central to how the Communist Party framed its legitimacy, not just as a military triumph but also as a symbol of national unity. But To Lam’s comments underlined that the reconciliation remains unfinished.
“The war still defines Vietnam’s unity, and its unresolved divides,” Giang said.
For Pham Ngoc Son, a veteran who fought for the communists, today there is “only space for peace and friendship” between the US and Vietnam.
“The war is over a long time ago,” said the 69-year-old who, during the war, served as an army truck driver bringing troops and supplies from the north to the south along the Ho Chi Minh trail — the secret supply route used by North Vietnam.
Passage of time has led to improved relations with US
This year also marks the 30-year anniversary of diplomatic ties between Vietnam and the US
In 2023, Vietnam upgraded its relations with the US to that of a comprehensive strategic partner, the highest diplomatic status it gives to any country and the same level of relations as China and Russia.
There are new signs of strain in the relationship with Washington, however, with President Donald Trump’s imposition of heavy tariffs and the cancelation of much foreign aid, which has affected war remediation efforts in Vietnam.
Vietnamese officials say the relationship with the US is anchored in American efforts to address war legacies such as Agent Orange contamination and unexploded ordnance in the countryside that still threaten lives.
The future of those projects is now at risk because of the Trump administration’s broad cuts to USAID.
Moreover, the export-dependent country is vulnerable in a global economy made fragile amid Trump’s tariff plans.
Vietnam was slammed with reciprocal tariffs of 46 percent, one of the highest. This puts a “big question mark” on what the US wants to achieve in Asia, said Huong Le-Thu of the International Crisis Group think tank.
Previously, close ties with Washington have helped Vietnam balance its relations with its much larger and more powerful neighbor China, she said.
Vietnam is one of the countries, along with the Philippines, that has been involved in direct confrontations with China over conflicting maritime claims in the South China Sea.
Focus on economic and not strategic competition may mean that Vietnam and other countries in Southeast Asia become less important for the US
“It really will be shaping up (on) how the new administration sees the strategic picture in the Indo-Pacific and where countries like Vietnam would fit in,” she said.
In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce on Tuesday refused to comment on reports that the Trump administration had discouraged diplomats from attending anniversary events. “I’m not going to discuss what has been suggested or not suggested,” she said.
The Embassy in Hanoi said US consul general in Ho Chi Minh City Susan Burns had attended the event. US ambassador Marc E. Knapper didn’t attend.
Who took part in the parade?
About 13,000 people, including troops, militias, veterans and local citizens took part in the parade. The route followed the main boulevard leading to the Independence Palace before branching into city streets and passed the US Consulate.
A video of Chinese troops singing the iconic song “As If Uncle Ho Were With Us on Victory Day” during a rehearsal was shared widely on social media. Chinese leader Xi Jinping had visited Vietnam earlier in the month in a bid to present the country as a force for stability in contrast with Trump.
Chinese national arrested with surveillance device near Philippine election commission
- The espionage accusations come as the two countries confront each other over disputed territory in the South China Sea
- Two Chinese men detained in February were accused of using the same device while driving near sensitive government and military locations in Manila
MANILA: A Chinese national was arrested while operating a surveillance device near the offices of the Philippine election commission, authorities said Wednesday, less than two weeks before the country’s mid-term polls.
The man was allegedly using an “IMSI catcher,” a device capable of mimicking a cell tower and snatching messages from the air in a one-to-three-kilometer (about 3,200-to-9,800-feet) radius.
Two Chinese men detained in February were accused of using the same device while driving near sensitive government and military locations in Manila.
National Bureau of Investigation spokesman Ferdinand Lavin told AFP the latest arrest was made Tuesday near the offices of the Philippine Commission on Elections (Comelec) after agents confirmed the IMSI was in operation.
“When we made the arrest, that was the third time he had come to Comelec,” Lavin said, adding other locations visited included the Philippine Supreme Court, Department of Justice and US Embassy.
The arrested man held a passport issued by Macau, Lavin said, while a hired Filipino driver who cooperated with the operation was not detained. Macau is ruled by China.
Calls to the Chinese Embassy in Manila and Comelec were not immediately returned.
Beijing this month made its own allegations of spying, saying it had “destroyed” an intelligence network set up by a Philippine espionage agency and arrested three Filipino spies.
The Philippines’ National Security Council (NSC) later said supposed confessions televised on Chinese state media appeared to have been “scripted, strongly suggesting that they were not made freely” and that a spy agency mentioned did not exist.
The espionage accusations come as the two countries confront each other over disputed territory in the South China Sea and as tensions rise over the Philippines’ security ties with ally the United States.
Last week, NSC Assistant Director General Jonathan Malaya told a Senate hearing that his agency believed Beijing was likely behind online attacks aimed at influencing the coming mid-term polls.
The Chinese Embassy strongly denied the allegation.
The Philippines’ May 12 elections will decide hundreds of seats in the House of Representatives and Senate as well as thousands of local positions.
