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    Paulo Fonseca: Former Roma and Shakhtar manager relives harrowing escape from war in Ukraine

    The former Roma manager Paulo Fonseca has relived his harrowing experience of escaping the war in Ukraine with his family.Fonseca, who has also managed Ukrainian side Shakhtar Donetsk and was linked to Tottenham in the summer, lives in Kyiv with his Ukrainian wife and children, and they were woken in the early hours when Russia’s bombing started.The Fonseca family immediately fled their apartment and tried to escape by car, but when they hit the main road west they were met by a wall of traffic. Instead they traveled east after a call from the sporting director of Shakhtar, Dario Srna, who offered shelter in Donetsk.“Dario called me and said to come to the hotel owned by the president of Shakhtar,” Fonseca told Sky Sports. “We moved to the hotel there and stayed in a bunker there overnight, for one and a half days overall, with the Brazilian players from Shakhtar and the technical team.“I started to think the situation was only going to get worse so we contacted the Portuguese embassy and they said, ‘Tomorrow we’ll have a car and you can go’. I decided to leave in the morning, the day after the car picked us up from the hotel and we started a long trip to the border. It was dangerous, we travelled all day and night without stopping.“The journey was 30 hours, more including across the border with Moldova to where we were staying in Romania. I saw many times the troops of Ukraine pass on the road, we stopped and listened to the alarms many times, and there was a lot of traffic.“We spent a lot of time going 5kmph. During the trip, of course, we were in danger even driving in the night, and I heard the planes passing, but I didn’t see shooting or fighting. We travelled with another family, a couple with a six-month-old baby. In the end we arrived on the border and felt safe, which was the most important thing.”Fonseca and his family are now safely in Portugal, and he has called for more support for the people of Ukraine.“These people, this country, doesn’t deserve what is happening. But they are heroes, they are fighting, and it’s really difficult for us to see the situation in Ukraine … I’m seeing all Europe trying to help everyone, I understand the political situation, but I have to say it’s not enough. I don’t know what more we can do, but we have to do more – or they will all die.”The Independent has a proud history of campaigning for the rights of the most vulnerable, and we first ran our Refugees Welcome campaign during the war in Syria in 2015. Now, as we renew our campaign and launch this petition in the wake of the unfolding Ukrainian crisis, we are calling on the government to go further and faster to ensure help is delivered. To find out more about our Refugees Welcome campaign, click here. To sign the petition click here. If you would like to donate then please click here for our GoFundMe page. More

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    Eurostar to let Ukrainian refugees travel to Britain for free on its trains

    Eurostar is to let Ukrainian refugees fleeing to the UK travel on its trains for free, the company has announced.The cross-channel high-speed rail operator joins other carriers around Europe in extending free travel to Ukraine nationals following the invasion of their country.The company said people with a valid visa to enter the UK and a Ukrainian passport should speak to Eurostar staff in Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam or Lille to be issued with a free ticket.”To help Ukrainian nationals travelling to the UK, we can offer a free Eurostar ticket from any Eurostar station to London St. Pancras International,” the company said in a statement issued on Wednesday.The German, French, Dutch, Polish, and Czech state rail operators, as well as high-speed service Thalys, are among national railways to have already announced free travel for Ukrainian nationals.Eurostar’s announcement means people with no resources will now also be able to reach the UK by train if they can secure a visa.Most European Union member states are operating an open door policy and have said they will give Ukrainians refuge without the need to apply for asylum.The Russian invasion is expected to displace millions of people, with hundreds of thousands of people already making their way to join family or seek safety in other countries.But the UK government has not followed suit and is operating a much harsher policy, with only a limited relaxation of visa conditions for those with family member in already in Britain. The new conditions are so limited do not even cover adult children, their parents, brothers or sisters.Opposition party Labour says the UK’s visa system should be simplified and has suggested the exemption should cover more relatives, though they have stopped short of calling for an open door along the lines of the EU.But Ukrainians who can obtain a visa will now be able to travel across the English Channel for free. In its statement, Eurostar said: “It is important to arrive with the necessary visa documents, as these will be checked by the UK Border Force during the check-in process. “The UK government is regularly reviewing the criteria for Ukrainian refugees to enter the UK, so we would strongly recommend contacting the British Embassy or checking the UK government website for the latest information.” The company also clarified that it could not accept pets on trains at this time.Eurostar operates high-speed rail services between London and the continent through the Channel Tunnel.The Independent last week launched its Refugees Welcome campaign, calling on the government to set up a resettlement scheme to grant sanctuary in the UK to Ukrainians fleeing the bloody conflict. Polls suggest a strong backing for the move. More

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    Vladimir Putin stripped of honorary black belt by World Taekwondo

    Vladimir Putin has been stripped of his honorary black belt in taekwondo in response to his invasion of Ukraine. The Russian president was awarded the black belt by the head of the World Taekwondo Federation, ChoueChung-won, and made a grandmaster of taekwondo during a visit to South Korea in November 2013. World Taekwondo also added that the anthems and flags of Russia and its ally Belarus would not be played or displayed at upcoming events.In a statement, World Taekwondo said it “strongly condemns the brutal attacks on innocent lives in Ukraine, which go against the World Taekwondo vision of ‘Peace is More Precious than Triumph’ and the World Taekwondo values of respect and tolerance”.It added: “In this regard, World Taekwondo has decided to withdraw the honorary 9th dan black belt conferred to Mr. Vladimir Putin in November 2013.“In solidarity with the International Olympic Committee, no Russian or Belarusian national flags or anthems will be displayed or played at World Taekwondo events. World Taekwondo and the European Taekwondo Union will not organise or recognise Taekwondo events in Russia and Belarus.“World Taekwondo’s thoughts are with the people of Ukraine and we hope for a peaceful and immediate end to this war.”Previous honorary black belts have included US presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, their South Korean counterpart Lee Myung-bak, and other leaders from Spain, Croatia, Pakistan, Indonesia and Honduras. More

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    Experts warn of potential surge in Russian cyber attacks on UK organisations

    Warnings have been raised over a potential surge in Russian cyber attacks against British organisations as the crisis in Ukraine escalates.Analysts and officials are expecting retaliation from Kremlin-linked cyber groups after sanctions were imposed by Boris Johnson and the government announced plans to send extra military support to Ukraine.The National Cyber Security Centre has already urged British organisations to “bolster their online defences” amid a deterioration in relations between Russia and the West.This follows several high-profile cyber operations that have been launched against Ukraine by suspected Russian forces since the beginning of 2022. On Wednesday, multiple Ukrainian government and banking websites were knocked offline in the latest wave of attacks linked to Russia’s military intelligence agency.It’s now feared the same tactics, in which Ukrainian websites have been defaced or breached by destructive malware, could also be deployed against UK servers if the current crisis further deepens in the weeks to come.Stefano De Blasi, an analyst at Digital Shadows, which specialises in digital risk protection, said it was “realistically possible that Russia will eventually retaliate against the sanctions recently imposed on them with targeted cyber operations”.He said distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks – an attempt to hinder the running of a server or network by overwhelming it with a flood of internet traffic – could be launched against Western organisations, alongside the dissemination of destructive malware.Digital Shadows, along with other cyber surveillance and protection companies, have detected a rise in attacks against Ukrainian targets in recent weeks.This include defacement attacks, espionage campaigns, wiper malware deployments, disinformation campaigns, and DDoS operations, Mr De Blasi said.“Although some of these attacks haven’t been attributed to the Russian Federation, overlapping motivations and goals likely indicate a common origin,” he said.“These attacks showcase the breadth of offensive operations that the Russian Federation maintains in its toolkit, and it suggests the potential for future attacks targeting Ukraine and its allies if the situation was to escalate.”On Tuesday, first minister Nicola Sturgeon also warned that the international community must be “vigilant” to retaliatory cyber attacks engineered by the Kremlin and its allies.“I think that is something that we have to be very vigilant about,” she said. “The discussions I’ve mentioned already about domestic impacts, cyber security is one of those.“We know, even before the current situation in Ukraine, that Russia was very active around cyber activity.”Russian state-associated threat groups have consistently used destructive cyber-attacks during military conflicts in the past, Digital Shadows said.This hybrid warfare approach has become a staple of Russian military doctrine and has been observed during its 2008 conflict with Georgia in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and against Ukraine since 2014.In an attempt to combat the spread of Russian disinformation and propaganda, the culture secretary has told Ofcom to review the operation of the Kremlin-backed Russia Today (RT) news channel in the UK.Writing to the regulator, Nadine Dorries said RT was “demonstrably part of Russia’s global disinformation campaign”.Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said RT was president Vladimir Putin’s “personal propaganda tool” and argued there is “no reason why it should be allowed to continue to broadcast in this country.”Currently, the NCSC said it was not aware of any specific cyber threats to UK organisations in relation to events in and around Ukraine, while Digital Shadows said “given the tense situation in Ukraine, Moscow is likely to focus on the conflict and on establishing financial and political frameworks to lessen the impact of Western sanctions,” rather than pursuing cyber operations.However, John Hultquist, a vice-president of intelligence analysis at Mandiant, a cyber security consultancy, said there was likely to be an increase in “more aggressive information operations and disruptive cyber attacks within and outside of Ukraine” as the crisis continues.“Russia’s military intelligence service is the most aggressive of its peers when it comes to cyberattacks and other activity in the sphere,” he added. “We have seen them carry out DDoS attacks on several occasions which they use to harass and undermine institutions.“It’s also important not to misjudge the purpose of these attacks – the disruption they cause is designed to intimidate and undermine and is not an end in itself. Furthermore, they may be timed or accompanied by other elements to magnify their psychological impact.” More

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    Energy crisis: Britain leans on gas shipments from Qatar to ease supply squeeze

    Britain has tapped Qatar as an informal natural gas supplier of last resort in the face of soaring gas prices, The Independent has learned, after foreign secretary Liz Truss visited the Gulf nation in October.Pressure to ensure gas supply has mounted as prices have risen at record rates across the EU and UK. Pandemic production disruption, lack of UK storage capacity and slimmer stores in major EU economies have left many countries scrambling to top up supplies of natural gas this winter.Energy suppliers this week described soaring gas prices as a “national crisis” and industry estimates suggest that consumers could face a doubling of energy bills when the price cap is reviewed in April. The business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng, along with the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem) and energy suppliers, was set to continue crisis talks this week after failing to reach a solution.Two sources familiar with the talks have suggested nothing short of a radical intervention – such as scrapping VAT or green levies – will be enough to mitigate the hit to households. The Europe-wide energy crunch has seen Serbia curb supplies to consumers, and last week, Kosovo’s distribution system operator announced it would introduce rolling two-hour blackouts to conserve energy from Thursday. Major European economies France and Germany are also grappling with energy price spikes while the UK faces a twin problem of cost and safeguarding supply. Against a backdrop of diminished capacity to store gas domestically, the UK brokered an informal arrangement with Qatar to keep gas deliveries flowing, as it prepares for a full strategic partnership agreement in 2022.The government has denied that Qatar is performing a “formal” role as a supplier of last resort. But sources familiar with shipments into the Isle of Grain terminal near London, and the QatarEnergy co-owned South Hook LNG terminal in Wales, believe there has been an increase in shipments since MsTruss visited the gulf state for talks in October.The sources say these shipments are in addition to those agreed by contracts in place earlier in 2021.This effort is aimed at reducing dependence on Norway and the US. “It avoids putting our eggs in too few baskets,” according to a source with knowledge of the Qatar talks. Existing commercial relationships between Qatar and UK-based buyers, such as Centrica, make it easier for the government to encourage greater supply without saying that it has directly requested additional shipments, The Independent understands.Mr Kwarteng is also understood to have been party to some discussions with Qatari counterparts in recent months. A government spokesperson said: “Qatar continues to be a supplier of liquefied natural gas to UK buyers but is not a formal supplier of last resort and we have not requested or secured any additional shipments from the Qatari government.” Britain’s gas supply remains “absolutely secure” with enough delivery capacity to meet demand, the spokesperson insisted.Centrica declined to comment, while the government of Qatar did not respond to a request for comment. More

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    More countries ‘trying to coerce women to have more children’, report finds

    More countries are adopting policies that coerce women into having more children, a report has found.Around three in ten nations across the globe now have pronatalist policies that encourage citizens to have more children, according to charity Population Matters.Researchers, who examined data from the United Nations, noted a substantial rise from the ten per cent of nations that enacted such policies in 1976.The paper highlighted examples of pronatalism being pursued in countries such as Turkey, Russia, Hungary, Poland, Iran and China.However, it also warned politicians in the US and Germany are beginning to champion parallel policies.Monica Scigliano, the report’s author, said: “When people think of coercive population policy, their minds often go to examples like China and India, in which leaders wanted to limit population growth by forcing women to have fewer children.“Now, however, with birth rates declining and in some cases emigration reversing population trends, that has changed.“As people continue to choose smaller families, more governments across the world are resorting to coercive tactics, depriving people of their reproductive rights in order to increase their populations.”Ms Scigliano, a policy adviser, said nationalism can spawn a “toxic brand of pronatalism” which signifies an “almost inevitable threat to sexual and reproductive health and rights”.Researchers warned nationalist governments are infringing on women’s reproductive and sexual freedom rights – suggesting “right-wing, populist and nationalist administrations are stigmatising women who choose to have smaller families as unpatriotic”.The proponents of pronatalist policies sometimes believe in the deeply racist and xenophobic “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory which maintains Christian and European populations and their culture will be eradicated due to immigrants from Muslim countries relocating overseas to escape human rights abuses.The report noted Viktor Orban, Hungary’s far-right prime minister, has proposed “a comprehensive agreement with Hungarian women” to bear more children. The leader promotes debt-free education for women but only if they have at least three children.He has also pledged that women who give birth to four or more children need not ever pay income tax again.“We want Hungarian children. Migration for us is surrender,” Mr Orban has previously said.Researchers also drew attention to pronatalist policies in Poland where a near-total abortion ban was enacted last October – further tightening the nation’s already highly restrictive abortion laws and triggering the largest protests in the country since the collapse of communism.Under the new laws, it is now illegal to have an abortion in cases where there are foetal defects. Before that, although terminating a pregnancy has long been illegal in Poland, foetal abnormalities were one of the exceptions where an abortion was permitted, along with cases of rape, incest, or where the mother’s life is at risk.Before the stringent new abortion rules were rolled out, some 98 per cent of the tiny number of legal abortions which occurred in the predominantly Catholic nation were cases of foetal defects.Campaigners have blamed the new for the recent death of a 30-year-old pregnant woman, named only as Izabela, who died after she was blocked from having an emergency operation as doctors said they had to wait until they could stop hearing her baby’s heartbeat.Antonina Lewandowska, an abortion rights campaigner who is one of the report’s authors, said anti-abortion campaigners in Poland forced doctors into “such a state of fear” that they preferred to let Izabela “go into septic shock” than provide her with an abortion earlier on and therefore “save her life”.She said: “They are terrified of prosecution and stigma, as the pro-natalist anti-choice movements would probably eat them alive. On the other hand, there is a group of medical professionals that are rather comfortable with the current situation.“As it lets them argue that medical negligence happens due to that ‘freezing effect’ of an abhorrent law rather than their own incompetence, mistake or deliberate choice to not provide their patients with necessary medical care – an abortion – due to their personal beliefs.“In both cases, it is clear – aggressive, fundamentalist pronatalism paved the way for violating human rights in Poland.”The report is titled Welcome to Gilead, a reference to The Handmaid’s Tale – a 1985 dystopian novel by Margaret Atwood, which is set in a fervently patriarchal, totalitarian state where women are forced to bear children for a governing class of men.Robin Maynard, director of Population Matters, said: “Coercive pronatalism is not simply a manifestation of patriarchy or misogyny but can be a product of political and economic forces entirely indifferent to women, for whom they exist simply as productive or non-productive wombs.“These regimes are instrumentalising women’s bodies to serve nationalistic, economic and patriarchal interests. Violating sexual and reproductive health and rights is never justified. It is imperative we all defend them, wherever they are threatened, and for whatever reason.”The report warned world leaders are anxious women deciding to have fewer children will impede their “economic and political goals”.“Pronatalism is often linked to a restrictive, patriarchal ‘pro-family’ agenda and the promotion of ethnic nationalism, based frequently on religious orthodoxy and hostility to multiculturalism and immigration,” researchers added. More

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    Amid pessimism and mistrust, Iran nuclear talks resume in Vienna after lengthy gap

    After a five-month delay, Tehran and world powers returned to Vienna on Monday to resume talks  to restore the imperiled 2015 deal that limited Iranian nuclear capabilities but were  subsequently torpedoed by Donald Trump.Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Saied Khatibzadeh said Tehran was “firmly determined” to salvage the deal, with US State Department spokesman Ned Price saying last week that Washington sought “a mutual return to compliance” in what will be a seventh round of talks.“We are serious about negotiations and reaching an agreement,” Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in a video posted online on Sunday.“Let’s get back into the deal,” US lead negotiator Robert Malley told National Public Radio on Friday. “Let’s do it by closing the remaining issues that were left open in June after six rounds of talks. But let’s hurry up because time is not on our side.”Behind the scenes though, many are sceptical that the deal can be revived.“The Iranians would like the Americans to show goodwill and make accommodations and the Americans would like Iranians to show goodwill,” said Sanam Vakil, Middle East and Iran specialist at Chatham House. “But this five-month pause has widened the misperceptions of each other and this has created a very pessimistic environment.”In the months since Iran, the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, China and the European Union last met in the Austrian capital to discuss restoring the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that held the Iranian nuclear programme in check, the ground has shifted significantly.The government in Tehran has changed, with the new hardline administration of President Ebrahim Raisi likely making any negotiations tougher. Iran has upped its programme, expanding its output of nuclear material while stonewalling inspectors seeking more information and access to its sensitive facilities.Inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency estimated earlier this month that Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was nearly 2,500 kilograms, more than enough to fuel a nuclear warhead or two if Iran were to break out of its treaty obligations and attempt to assemble a bomb.The delay has emboldened the JCPOA’s long-standing opponents. Over the weekend, the regime launched a violent crackdown on farmers and environmental activists peacefully protesting the drying out of a beloved and historic river in the city of Isfahan, highlighting Iran’s grim human rights record and the reputational risks of dealing with the country.American Republicans maintain their staunch opposition to the deal thwarted by their standard-bearer, Trump.  Since the last round of talks, the US administration of President Joseph Biden has grown weaker, with poll numbers sagging and hawkish Republican opponents smelling blood.“The domestic climate in both Iran and the United States can muddy swift progress,” said Ms Vakil.Israeli Prime Minister Lapid was in the United Kingdom on Monday to lobby the government of Boris Johnson to take a tough stance  on Iran and will visit France to press President Emmanuel Macron later this week. Israel worries that the administration of President Joseph Biden could remove some of the crippling sanctions put in place by Trump in exchange for an Iranian suspension of enrichment.“Israel is very disturbed by the willingness to lift the sanctions and allow billions to flow into Iran in exchange for insufficient restrictions in the nuclear sphere,” Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett was quoted as saying during a Cabinet meeting on Sunday.Iran has grown more paranoid, following repeated attacks on its nuclear facilities, presumably by Israel. On Sunday, Mr Lapid and UK foreign secretary Liz Truss penned a joint piece in a UK newspaper declaring a united front against Iran, prompting a furious response from Tehran.“The British foreign secretary writes a joint article on the night ahead of the Vienna talks together with a party that from the very beginning put all efforts to prevent the signing of the JCPOA and its revocation and today, too, is the main opponent to the Vienna talks and the revival of the JCPOA,” Mr Khatibzadeh said. “You come to see that at least some European countries are not coming to Vienna with the will needed for lifting the sanctions.”Adding to the sense of mistrust, the Iranians have refused to meet directly with American counterparts, instead communicating through European intermediaries, while conferring with their Russian and Chinese patrons. Ms Vakil said a lack of direct contacts was complicating the talks. More

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    UK trade talks risk ‘lending legitimacy’ to Brazil’s far-right regime, TUC claims

    The UK risks lending legitimacy to Brazil’s far-right regime in its pursuit of closer trade ties with the country, trade union chief, Frances O’Grady has told the Independent. The warning comes as the UK launched a new export strategy Wednesday. The self-styled “ambitious” plan is aimed at encouraging exports to non-EU markets. It follows reports that show significant costs of new red tape for British traders doing business with the bloc, the UK’s single largest export market.Yet efforts to increase international opportunities for British businesses to compensate for greater trade friction with the EU must not come at the price of ethical standards, said Ms O’Grady, general secretary at the Trades Union Congress (TUC).“Ministers have rushed into trade deals with some of the worst regimes in the world for working people, like Colombia and Turkey. And now it looks like they will do the same with Brazil. “It’s vital our government does not legitimise the far-right Bolsonaro with trade talks on the global stage, especially in the year of an election,” she said, adding: “It’s time for ministers to do the right thing and make it clear that trade talks are off the table while Bolsonaro is still in power.” A new 50-page study from the TUC published Wednesday detailed a host of concerns with Brazil’s government, led by president Jair Bolsonaro. It notes that since the leader took power, four trade unionists have been murdered and strikes have been “violently repressed”.Meanwhile, British officials confirmed to the Independent that the country is currently listed among nations due to commence trade talks with the UK in 2022. The south American country is the eight largest economy in the world, according to the CIA’s World Factbook.The TUC’s report includes research on the numbers of murders within vulnerable groups who have clashed with the Bolsonaro regime. It details 29 murders of environmental activists in 2019, 129 murders of transgender people in 2020 between January and September as well as numerous “political” murders” the TUC said. “The government has published a list of journalists, activists, and social media influencers that it considers hostile to its agenda, and has encouraged its supporters to attack them online,” the report said. It added that trade union leaders face death threats and arbitrary arrest.According to a British government factsheet Brazil is the UK’s 33rd most important trade partner with bilateral trade worth around £5.6bn in the four quarters up to June 2021. While COVID-19 may have warped trade data, official figures suggest that the trade surplus the UK had with Brazil has shrunk over the same period. The UK sold £369m more in goods and services to Brazil than it bought from the country compared to a surplus of £948m in the four quarters to the end of June 2020.The debate over how to align the UK’s commercial interests with environmental and labour standards has become increasingly heated as it moves from securing deals that replicate EU trading terms, towards fresh agreements.“Trade deals can be a vehicle to improve workers’ rights and protections, while providing new jobs and investment for communities that need it most,” Ms O’Grady said. “But the UK government’s trade policy has not put working people first – whether home or away.”The TUC study also comes after environmental groups have also criticized and agreement to halt and reverse deforestation in Brazil and other nations at the UN COP26 climate summit in Glasgow this month. Environmental concerns have also been cited by EU member states who have refused to greenlight the EU’s trade deal with the Mercosur trade bloc of South American countries which includes Brazil.A Government spokesperson said: “We continue to engage with Brazil regularly on trade and we have been clear that more trade will not come at the expense of human rights or the environment.“The UK works to support human rights issues in the Amazon through a variety of mechanisms, including diplomatic channels and programmes to support communities and indigenous peoples.”They added: “We have engaged extensively with Brazil on COP26 and our climate commitments, including on deforestation. We have also worked to secure important net zero commitments from 11 Brazilian states, covering over 60% of Brazil’s emissions.”Environmental campaign group Greenpeace suggested that the lack of a binding timetable for the deforestation measures agreed at COP26 meant it had little value. Carolina Pasquali, executive director at Greenpeace Brazil, said: “There’s a very good reason [president] Jair Bolsonaro felt comfortable signing on to this new deal. It allows another decade of forest destruction and isn’t binding.”She added: “Meanwhile the Amazon is already on the brink and can’t survive years more deforestation. Indigenous peoples are calling for 80 per cent of the Amazon to be protected by 2025, and they’re right, that’s what’s needed. The climate and the natural world can’t afford this deal.” More