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INTERNATIONAL THURSDAY, JULY 23, 2015 Troubled Moldova edges towards formation of new pro-Europe govt CHISINAU: Three pro-Europe Moldovan parties European integration. But with only 52 seats in the Natalia Gherman, who also doubles as foreign minis- 2009, after years of communist rule, despite relying announced yesterday they had agreed to form a new 101-seat parliament, the three parties have only a ter, may be asked to stay on though Education hugely on Russian energy supplies and the presence ruling coalition to produce a government to pilot the slender majority in a country where a considerable Minister Maia Sandu also is a possibility, commenta- of a pro-Russia self-proclaimed statelet called country towards integration with the European part of the 3.5 million population is Russian-speak- tors said. Another pressing task for any new govern- Transdniestria within its borders. Union and unlock fresh foreign funding. ing, many of whom favour closer economic ties with ment will be to trace the $1 billion - equivalent to But economic mismanagement and a failure to The small ex-Soviet state, sandwiched between Moscow. Moldova’s political instability has held up one eighth of Moldovan gross domestic product - tackle corruption has kept nostalgia for Soviet times Ukraine and EU member Romania, has been in tur- agreement on a new programme with the which disappeared from three of the country’s high among large section of the population. moil after a banking scandal involving the disappear- International Monetary Fund which has in turn largest banks, bringing thousands of people onto the Gaburici himself stepped down in June after his ance of $1 billion from the banking system and the blocked disbursement of EU budgetary support. streets of the capital in protest. educational credentials were challenged by the resignation of Prime Minister Chiril Gaburici in June. The first task of the new coalition will be to decide Liberal party leader Mihai Ghimpu, one of the opposition. Economic turbulence in Russia, Moldova’s A statement said the Liberal-Democratic Party of for- on a prime minister. Filat led the government from three coalition leaders, reiterated on Wednesday that main trading partner, has hit the pace of Moldova’s mer prime minister Vlad Filat, the Democratic party September 2009 but was forced from office in March finding the missing cash should be given top priority growth in 2015 while Russian involvement in the sep- and the Liberal party had agreed in the early hours 2013 following charges that his government had by any new government. aratist conflict in neighbouring Ukraine has brought on Wednesday to form a new coalition dedicated to been involved in corruption. Acting prime minister Moldova embarked on a pro-Europe course in further concern to its pro-EU leaders. — Reuters Spain to seek Syrian govt help to find journalists MADRID: Spain said yesterday that it is trying on Yasuda. The three Spanish journalists, who to establish what happened to three Spanish entered Syria separately from Yasuda, were first freelance journalists who went missing around reported missing Tuesday by a Spanish journal- the embattled northern Syrian city of Aleppo as ism association. news emerged that a fourth journalist, a In another interview late Tuesday, Catala, the Japanese national, has gone missing in the war- Spanish justice minister, said it was necessary “to torn country. find out what happened, who is holding these Justice Minister Rafael Catala told Spain’s journalists, why, and if the possible captors are Cadena SER radio the government had no news looking for a ransom.” regarding the three Spaniards and will contact Also in Madrid, Foreign Minister Margallo the government in Damascus over the case. said Spain’s National Intelligence Center was Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia handling the case and that such cases depend- Margallo told reporters that such cases caused ed a lot on the movements of other parties much anxiety “because you have a certain sense involved but added that “all the precedents were of impotence, because you’re dependent on the good.” Three Spanish journalists were released in movements of those who have kidnapped our March 2014 after being held hostage by extrem- compatriots.” So far, the government has not ists for months in Syria. It is widely believed that specifically said if it is treating the case as a kid- their government paid a ransom for their napping. Margallo urged “maximum discretion” release, although it has not been officially con- in the case but called for “tranquility,” saying sim- firmed. Margallo also told reporters that the ilar situations in the past had ended well for government was in constant contact with Spain. With the rise of the Islamic State group Spanish embassy in Ankara, Turkey, which han- and a spate of journalists’ abductions starting in dles Syria. Madrid had also contacted U.N. spe- mid-2013, most media organizations have opted cial envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura, who was to stay away from coverage inside Syria because scheduled to travel from Beirut to Damascus on of the unacceptable risk level. Over the last year, Wednesday, and embassies of other countries in it has become rare for any foreign journalists to the region, he added. go into northern Syria, where a myriad of Islamic groups and the more extremist IS and al-Qaida Risky place group rule. The four-year conflict in Syria has killed more A Spanish journalism association first report- than 220,000 people and has been the most CEYLANPINAR: Police officers carry a coffin into a funeral vehicle after two police officers were found shot dead in their homeylanpinar, inCe a ed on Tuesday that the three - identified as deadly country in the world for journalists for town near Turkey’s border with Syria, yesterday. Governor for Sanliurfa province, Izzettin Kucuk, said it was not immediately clear if the attack Antoniu Pampliega, Jose Manuel Lopez and the past few years. At least 84 journalists have against the policemen who were sharing a house, was terrorism-linked. The assault comes two days after a bomb attack in the nearby the town Angel Sastre - were missing since July 13. They been killed since 2011 in Syria, according to the of Suruc, also near the Syrian border, killed tens of people and wounded nearly 100. — AP had traveled to Syria, presumably together, to New York-based Committee to Protect report on the country’s long-running civil war. Journalists, including at least 12 international “An effort has been underway since then to correspondents. More than 90 journalists have South Sudan troops ‘crushed search and locate them,” a statement from their been abducted in the country since the conflict families said. began and approximately 25 are currently miss- ing, most of them local, it said. Dangerous assignment “The disappearance of these four journalists civilians with tanks’: HRW The three are the latest journalists to become underscores that Syria remains an extremely ensnared in the world’s most dangerous assign- risky place for the press,” said CPJ’s Middle East ment for reporters. A fourth journalist, a Program Coordinator Sherif Mansour from People flee into swamps to escape Japanese freelancer, has also been reported Washington. missing in Syria where he was last heard from An unprecedented spate of kidnappings by one month ago. Islamic State militants starting in summer 2013 NAIROBI: South Sudanese government troops vehicles, raking hiding places with machine guns. Liberation Army (SPLA), launched a major offen- It is not known why Jumpei Yasuda, who has has kept most journalists away, particularly since crushed fleeing civilians with tanks, then reversed “They were hunting for cows and people,” one sive against rebel forces in April, with fierce fight- been reporting on the Middle East since 2002, the group began killing foreign journalists and to check they had killed them, carried out public woman in the Koch area of Unity state said. ing in Unity, once a key oil producing area. has not been in contact. Yasuda was taken aid workers it holds, starting with American gang rapes and burned people alive, a rights group Other victims recount government soldiers cas- Rebel forces have also been accused of carry- hostage in Iraq in 2004, with three other journalist James Foley in August last year. Foley’s said yesterday. trating a man and a 15-year old boy, all part of a ing out atrocities, including rape, killings and, like Japanese, but was freed after Islamic clerics taped beheading was followed by the killing of The report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) has deliberate tactic to drive people out of the villages, the government, the recruitment of armies of negotiated his release. American-Israeli journalist Steven Sotloff, British shocking allegations of atrocities committed by HRW said. child soldiers. Kosuke Tsuneoka, another freelance reporter, aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, government forces in the ongoing 19-month-old HRW documented murders “of civilian women The United Nations base in the capital of Unity said Wednesday that he received a message American aid worker Peter Kassig, as well as war, documenting “deliberate attacks on civilians” and men, including children and the elderly, some State, Bentiu, now hosts over 100,000 civilians, from Yasuda in Syria on June 23, but has not Japanese nationals Haruna Yukawa and Kenji that it said constitute war crimes. by hanging, others by shooting, or being burned more than the ruined town itself, which has heard from him since. Goto. The group also has generated cash “They were running with the tanks after the alive.” South Sudan’s civil war began in December swapped hands between government and rebels “It is not normal that there has been no con- through holding European journalists for ran- people, and then after they hit them they would 2013 when President Salva Kiir accused his former several times during the war.