French authorities plan to use an AI-assisted crowd control system to monitor people during the 2024 Paris Olympics, according to a draft law seen by AFP on Thursday.

The system is intended to allow the security services to detect disturbances and potential problems more easily, but will not use facial recognition technology, the bill says.

The technology could be particularly useful during the highly ambitious open-air opening ceremony  with Olympians sailing down the river Seine in front of a crowd of 600,000 people.

French police and sports authorities faced severe criticism in May after shambolic scenes during the Champions League final in Paris when football fans were caught in a crowd crush and teargassed.

The draft law, which was presented to the cabinet on Thursday, proposes other security measures including the use of full-body scanners and increases the sentences for hooliganism.

Organizers and Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin have both argued in favor of using so-called “intelligent” security camera software that scans images for suspect or dangerous behavior.

The use of such a system during the Olympics is an “experimentation”, the draft law says, but could be applied for future public events which face terrorism-related or crowd control risks.

“No biometric data is used, nor facial recognition technology and it does not enable any link or interconnection or automatic flagging with any other personal data system,” the bill states.

The games’ organizing committee said on November 21 that it needed to lift its budget estimate by 10 per cent from 3.98 billion euros to 4.48bn euros, partly as a result of inflation.

Rather than opening the games in an athletics stadium as is customary, organizers have planned a ceremony on July 26, 2024 with a flotilla of some 200 boats sailing down the river Seine.

The banks of the river can accommodate 100,000 people who will have to buy tickets, while another 500,000 are set to watch for free from the street level, according to government estimates.

The draft law is expected to be debated in parliament in January where the minority government of President Emmanuel Macron will need support from opposition groups to pass it.
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Spain was plunged into an unprecedented constitutional crisis this month after judges blocked a law for the first time since the return of democracy.  

This young democracy was facing its first major upheaval since the illegal Catalan independence referendum in 2017 caused the deepest political crisis in decades.  

Growing political polarization ahead of elections next year meant Spain was embroiled in the same problems which have beset the United States and Britain, observers said.   

Lawmakers last week approved a government bill to change how the judiciary’s governing council, known as General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), operates, paving the way for the leftist government’s two nominees to get onto the Constitutional Court. 

But judges in the Constitutional Court Monday voted by six votes to five to grant an order sought by the opposition People’s Party (PP) which paralyzed the bill. The PP had argued that the way the law had been framed was not legal.   

Legislative process interrupted 

It is the first time the legislative process has been interrupted by the court since Spain returned to democracy in 1978, three years after the death of longtime ruler General Francisco Franco.   

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said he respected the court’s ruling but was determined to push through a change to alter the way the CGPJ is made up. He did not specify what this would be. 

“These events are unprecedented in the democratic history of our country but also in the history of any other country in the European institutional area,” he said Tuesday.  

Opposition parties countered that the government had tried to rush through emergency reforms of an institution which was key to the country’s democracy.  

“Sanchez and his supporters are presenting this as an attack on parliament (but) it’s actually a defense,” said Alberto Nunez Feijoo, the PP leader.  

Known as Spain’s legal watchdog, the CGPJ has 20 members made up of 12 judges and eight lawyers, who are elected by both chambers of the Spanish parliament.  

The mandates of one-third of the constitutional court’s judges, three conservatives and one liberal, have expired. Political disagreements over their replacements have dragged on for four years as the main political parties cannot agree on how this should take place.  

The government’s proposed reforms would have renewed the mandates of the four members of the constitutional court in a move which Sanchez said was necessary to end the deadlock and free up a court system which was hamstrung because of the dispute.   

However, the PP accused the government of trying to fill the courts with leftist allies and it argues that judges, not politicians, should vote on new judges.  

Concern in the region 

The stalemate over a key body controlling the judiciary has prompted criticism from the European Commission, or EC. The commission has urged Spain to find a solution because it believes a key democratic institution has been damaged.  

The bill passed last week also seeks to lower jail terms for crimes of sedition and misuse of public funds. Opponents in the PP and far-right Vox party claim this will benefit the leaders of Catalan separatist parties who backed a failed independence declaration in 2017. 

Sanchez relies on the votes of the separatist Catalan Esquerra Republicana (ERC) party to pass legislation and may depend on the party at next year’s election.  

Last year, the Spanish prime minister pardoned nine Catalan separatists for their role in the illegal referendum which caused the deepest crisis in Spain for decades.  

Camino Mortera, of the Center for European Reform, a research institution, said the Spanish government’s attempts to interfere in the composition of the judiciary had worrying overtones of events in Poland and Hungary. 

Warsaw and Budapest have muzzled the independent judiciary in moves which have concerned the European Commission and civil rights groups. 

“Given what is happening with Poland and Hungary, just a mere suspicion that a government is trying to intervene in any way in the composition of a court through emergency legislation raises suspicions,” she told VOA.  

She said Brussels has been concerned that after the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries have tried to use emergency legislation to make important changes, as happened in Spain over the constitutional court. 

Growing polarization 

“Polarization in Spain is very worrying. This has happened in other countries. I am talking about the U.S. and the U.K. It worries me because we are not a country that deals with drama well,” she said.  

“When (this translates) to the political world, you have (the far-right) Vox and (far-left) Podemos. I worry what is going to happen if the Socialist government loses the next election. Feijoo is a calming figure, but I don’t think he will be able to govern on his own. The most radical thing you can be in Spain is to be centrist and moderate.”   

Polls have shown that the PP is expected to win the election, but Feijoo will not be able to govern without the help of Vox.   

Pablo Simon, a political expert at the University Carlos III in Madrid, said the fallout from the clash between parliament and the court showed how fractured Spain’s political life had become.  

“Polarization is damaging the democracy in Spain as is happening in the U.S.,” he told VOA.   

Some information in this report came from Agence France-Presse.
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The alleged boss of Asia’s biggest crime syndicate and one of the world’s most wanted men has been extradited to Australia and arrested on drug trafficking charges, police said Thursday.    

Chinese-born Canadian Tse Chi Lop, 59, is suspected of being the leader of an Asian mega-cartel known as Sam Gor, a major global producer and supplier of methamphetamines.   

He is expected to appear in Melbourne Magistrates’ Court Thursday to answer a charge of “conspiracy to traffic commercial quantities of controlled drugs” after being extradited from the Netherlands.    

 

Tse, dubbed Asia’s “El Chapo” in reference to Mexican drug lord Joaquin Guzman’s nickname, faces life imprisonment if convicted.    

Australian police hailed it as “one of the most high-profile arrests in the history” of the country.   

The Sam Gor organization — or “The Company” — is believed to launder billions in drug money through casinos, hotels and real estate in Southeast Asia’s Mekong region.    

Tse was detained at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in January 2021 after a decade-long hunt.   

He had been the subject of an Interpol Red Notice.    

Australian Federal Police assistant commissioner Krissy Barrett said the arrest came after a “very complex investigation.”    

“We allege this male is the head of a large transnational organized crime syndicate,” she said.    

“By their very nature, these very senior figures within the syndicates obviously deliberately stay hands-off in terms of the business dealings.”   

“That’s why it’s such a significant arrest and why it has taken a fair amount of time.”    

Australian police said that the charges relate to a specific 2012-2013 operation transferring drugs from Melbourne to Sydney.    

A police sting at the time nabbed 27 people and netted 20 kilos of methamphetamine with a current street value of around $3 million.    

A second man has also been arrested after being extradited from Thailand.    

“The hard work of investigators, and the (Australian Federal Police) international network, has enabled these alleged offenders to be charged and face the justice system in Australia,” said Barrett.  
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday addressed the U.S. Congress as a wartime leader appealing for American support, as British Prime Minister Winston Churchill did more than 80 years before. 

Zelenskyy’s visit to Washington, much like Churchill’s in December 1941, came with his country under relentless attack and international aid essential to its ability to fight on. 

“Ukraine holds its lines and will never surrender,” Zelenskyy told Congress, echoing one of Churchill’s most famous phrases and earning a standing ovation. 

Zelenskyy earlier this year channeled Churchill in a video address to Britain’s House of Commons, pledging to “fight in the forests, in the fields, on the shores, in the streets.” 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he had told Zelensky “that where Winston Churchill stood generations ago, so too does he tonight not just as a president but as an ambassador for freedom itself.” 

The comparison between Churchill’s and Zelensky’s trips to the United States has its limits, however, including in the length of the Ukrainian leader’s stay. 

Churchill spent three weeks in Washington at the invitation of President Franklin Roosevelt, a lengthy visit that historians say wore on the nerves of first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who did not enjoy the two men’s late-night cigar- and brandy-fueled conversations. 

Zelenskyy’s trip lasted only a few hours and included a meeting in the Oval Office, a joint press conference with President Joe Biden, and the speech to Congress. 

Churchill ventured across the Atlantic by ship despite the threat of submarines, while Zelenskyy made the journey via aircraft. 

When Churchill arrived in the United States, he found a country shaken by the Japanese attack on the naval base at Pearl Harbor and drawn into an international conflict it had sought to avoid. 

While Biden is willing to be compared to Roosevelt for his ambitious economic reforms, he does not want to be drawn into a third world war, making clear that he will not send troops to Ukraine, nor even certain types of weapons, in a bid to avoid escalation.
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U.S. President Joe Biden welcomed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the White House Wednesday, marking Zelenskyy’s first known visit outside Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion of the country in February.

“Ukrainian people continue to inspire the world,” Biden said. “Not just inspire us, but inspire the world, with their courage and how they chose their resilience and resolve for their future.”

The American people “have stood proudly” with Ukrainians, he said.

“Democrats and Republicans together with our allies in Europe and Japan and other places, to make sure you have the financial, humanitarian and security assistance that is needed,” Biden said, noting that it has been 300 days since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his “brutal assault on Ukraine’s right to exist as a nation.”

Zelenskyy, who spoke in English, extended to Biden his appreciation for the bipartisan support “from my heart, the hearts of Ukrainians, all Ukrainians.”

“Thanks, from our just ordinary people, to your ordinary people, Americans,” he said.

Zelenskyy also gave Biden a Cross for Military Merit medal that belonged to a Ukrainian soldier, a captain of a HIMARS battery provided by the U.S. The soldier had asked Zelenskyy to give it to the “very brave president.” Accepting the medal, Biden said it was “undeserved, but much appreciated.”

Later, during a joint press conference, Zelenskyy thanked “the people of America. People who do so much for Ukraine. I am thankful for all of that.”

He also thanked Biden for the new package of aid, including a Patriot battery system, saying it “will strengthen our air defense significantly. This is a very important step to create secure airspace for Ukraine,” preventing Russia from attacking “our energy sector, our people and our infrastructure.”

In a briefing to reporters Tuesday evening, a senior administration official said Zelenskyy’s visit carries a symbolic importance, providing an opportunity to “underscore the United States’ enduring commitment to Ukraine.”

“This is about sending a message to Putin and sending a message to the world that America will be there for Ukraine for as long as it takes,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity as is customary for such briefings.

“President Putin badly miscalculated the beginning of this conflict when he presumed that the Ukrainian people would yield and that NATO would be disunited. He was wrong on both those counts. He remains wrong about our staying power. And that’s what this visit will demonstrate.”

The trip comes as U.S. lawmakers are debating another $45 billion in emergency aid to Ukraine, which would bring the total American wartime assistance to more than $100 billion. Zelenskyy was set to speak before a joint meeting of Congress later Wednesday.

“Zelenskyy may want to make a strong public case for U.S. support at a time when some Republicans and some progressives in the House have expressed skepticism about aid to Ukraine,” said William Courtney, adjunct senior fellow at RAND.

A recent Chicago Council poll finds that 65% of Americans continue to support U.S. assistance to Ukraine. And 48% say the U.S. should support Ukraine “as long as it takes,” while 47% want Washington to urge Kyiv to settle for peace as soon as possible.

While Zelenskyy is not known to have left Ukraine since the invasion began in February, he has made visits outside of the capital, Kyiv, including going Tuesday to the eastern city of Bakhmut, where his forces have been engaged in heavy fighting. He made a stop in Poland on the way to Washington.

Patriot missile defense

As Zelenskyy touched down on U.S. soil, the U.S. Department of Defense announced $1.85 billion in additional security assistance for Ukraine, which includes a Patriot air defense battery and munitions, additional ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), missiles, artillery and other munitions. It’s the 28th such drawdown of equipment Biden has authorized since August 2021.

“This $1 billion drawdown will provide Ukraine with expanded air defense and precision-strike capabilities, as well as additional munitions and critical equipment that Ukraine is using so effectively to defend itself on the battlefield,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

Blinken said the U.S. is also announcing an additional $850 million of security assistance, bringing the total to an unprecedented $21.9 billion since the beginning of the administration.

Zelenskyy has repeatedly urged the U.S. and others to provide air defense systems that could help Ukraine deal with missile and drone attacks by Russian forces that have hit cities across the country and battered its infrastructure.

The senior administration official said Ukrainian forces will be trained on how to use the Patriot system in a third country, adding that the process “will take some time.”

“Ukrainian soldiers are the fastest I’ve ever seen at learning new technology. They’ll do it somewhere in Germany, or Poland, I’m imagining,” said retired commanding general, United States Army Europe Ben Hodges in an interview with VOA Ukrainian.

The Patriot, designed to protect a limited area is “the best in the world for its purpose,” Hodges said, “to knock down cruise missiles, and advanced aircrafts” but is “not a silver bullet.”

At the joint press conference later Wednesday, when asked why Ukraine couldn’t be given all the weapons capabilities it was asking for, Biden said the U.S. was giving Ukraine what it needed to be able to defend itself and succeed on the battlefield.

“The idea that we would give Ukraine material that is fundamentally different than what is already going there would have a prospect of breaking up NATO and breaking up the European Union and the rest of the world,” he said.

Biden said he had spent “several hundred hours” with European allies to urge them to continue to support Ukraine.

“They understand it fully, but they’re not looking to go to war with Russia. They’re not looking for a third world war,” he said.

No peace talks

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Wednesday that new weapons deliveries to Ukraine would deepen the conflict, and that Russia saw no chance of peace talks with Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Zelenskyy, asked to define what a “just peace” meant to him during the joint press conference, said it meant “no compromises” to the “sovereignty, freedom and territorial integrity” of Ukraine.  

A pessimistic message on peace prospects is also coming out of the White House. Moscow has shown no intention in engaging in serious negotiations and Biden will not push for Ukraine to negotiate an ending to the war Russia started, said the senior administration official.

The official said Biden would instead “work with Congress and with our allies to put Ukraine in the best possible position on the battlefield, so that when the time is right they are in the best possible position at the negotiating table.”

Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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