World

NEW YORK — Former cryptocurrency whiz kid Sam Bankman-Fried knowingly stole money from customers of his FTX platform, US prosecutors told a federal court in closing arguments on Wednesday.

“This is not about complex issues of cryptocurrencies,” Prosecutor Nicolas Roos told the jury after several days of whithering cross-examination of the fallen crypto king.

“It’s about deception. It’s about lies. It’s about stealing. It’s about greed,” he said of the 31-year-old who was estimated to be worth several billion dollars at the height of his fame.

Bankman-Fried is on trial in New York for siphoning funds invested by unknowing customers on his FTX cryptocurrency exchange platform, once the second biggest exchange for crypto investors. He faces decades in prison if convicted.

Up to $14 billion of client money fuelled the transactions and venture investments of Alameda Research, Bankman-Friends personally owned hedge fund.

The jury is faced with the question whether “the defendant knew taking the money was wrong”, Roos said.

“He knew it was wrong. He did it anyway [and] thought because he was smart he could get away with it,” the prosecutor argued.

To believe otherwise, “you’d have to believe that the defendant was actually clueless. You sat through this trial and you know that none of it is true”.

During the trial that began on October 3, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate admitted he made “mistakes” in managing his crypto empire, but that he never committed fraud.

He depicted himself as a young entrepreneur swamped with work who only became aware of the trouble at Alameda when it was too late.

He said the problems at Alameda arose because his directions were ignored by staff, including his former girlfriend Caroline Ellison, whom he had tapped to run Alameda.

Roos pointed out that three witnesses, Ellison and other close associates, each claimed that the ex-cryptocurrency genius had given instructions for Alameda to pilfer the coffers of FTX, virtually without limit.

“That’s fraud. That’s stealing, plain and simple,” Roos said.

The trial has revealed that company software authorised Alameda to borrow up to $65 billion from FTX via a “back door”, using the money for risky investments, political donations, and the purchase of swishy real estate.

But the blank check turned sour when the cryptocurrency industry got rocked by a series of defaults in 2022, causing the value of virtually all digital currencies and Alameda’s assets to plummet.

According to prosecutors, at the time of the bankruptcy of FTX, just over $8 billion belonging to customers vanished into bad investments at Alameda.

MADRID — Princess Leonor, heir to the Spanish crown, swore loyalty to the constitution on Tuesday, her 18th birthday, a legal milestone that royal watchers hope will turn the page for the monarchy after several years marred by scandal.

Her parents, King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia, and younger sister Sofia watched on as Leonor took the oath before a joint session of both houses of parliament.

Outside, flag-waving, cheering crowds watched the brief ceremony live on giant screens set up around Madrid.

“So proud to live such a day in Spain, it should have been a national holiday,” said Blanca Palomares, a 23-year-old student who watched the ceremony in the Puerta del Sol square.

Wearing a white suit, Leonor pledged loyalty on the same copy of the constitution as her father 37 years ago. 

“I swear to faithfully fulfil my duties, to protect and have protected the Constitution and its laws, to respect the rights of citizens and autonomous communities and to be faithful to the king,” she said. 

Loud applause erupted in the chamber after, as the king embraced his oldest daughter. 

Church bells rang around Madrid and the country and crowds watching on screens also broke into applause and cheers. 

With the oath taken, Leonor can legally succeed Felipe and automatically becomes head of state in the event of the monarch’s absence. 

Afterwards, the crown princess drove to the royal palace through the streets of Madrid, many of them decorated with photos of her.

“Happy birthday!” “Long live Spain!” shouted onlookers.

Leonor has managed to win popular affection, with the latest edition of celebrity magazine Lecturas dedicating its front page to the rise of “Leonormania” this week. 

“I’m not a royalist, but the fact that it’s a woman makes me a bit more sympathetic,” said Andrea, 23, who came to central Madrid out of curiosity to witness the ceremony.

New chapter

Leonor speaks French, English and Catalan in addition to Spanish, and is learning a bit of Galician and Basque — two regional languages spoken in Spain. 

After finishing her International Baccalaureate at Atlantic College in Wales, the future commander-in-chief of Spain’s armed forces in August began three years of military training at a military academy in the north-eastern city of Zaragoza. 

Like her father Felipe, she is expected to spend a year in each section of the armed forces, beginning with the army, before completing her university studies.

Royal supporters hope that the young, photogenic Leonor can breathe new life into the royal family, which had been battered over the last few years by scandals surrounding her grandfather, Juan Carlos.

Juan Carlos came to the throne in 1975 after the death of dictator Francisco Franco.

He was widely respected for his role in helping guide Spain from dictatorship to democracy, but a steady flow of embarrassing stories about his love life and personal wealth eroded his standing.

He abdicated in 2014, dogged by scandals and health problems, and in 2020 went into self-imposed exile in Abu Dhabi amid investigations into his financial affairs, which have since been shelved.

Juan Carlos did not attend the ceremony in parliament, but media reported he would attend a private party at the El Pardo palace near Madrid later in the day — the first formal royal family gathering at which he’ll be present since going into exile.

When she ascends to the throne, Leonor will become Spain’s third full-fledged queen (instead of a queen consort), following Joanna of Castile in the 16th century and Isabella II in the 19th century.

NAIROBI — King Charles III begins a state visit to Kenya on Tuesday, where he will be confronted by widespread calls for an apology over Britain’s bloody colonial past.

Although the four-day trip by Charles and Queen Camilla has been billed as an opportunity to look to the future and build on the strong ties between London and Nairobi, the legacy of decades of British colonial rule looms large.

It is the 74-year-old British head of state’s first visit to an African and Commonwealth nation since ascending the throne in September last year on the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II.

The British High Commission said the visit, which follows trips to Germany and France earlier this year, will “spotlight the strong and dynamic partnership between the UK and Kenya”.

But it will also “acknowledge the more painful aspects” of Britain’s historic relationship with Kenya as the East African country prepares to celebrate 60 years of independence in December.

This includes the 1952-60 “Emergency”, when colonial authorities imposed a state of emergency in response to the Mau Mau guerrilla uprising, one of the bloodiest insurgencies against British rule.

At least 10,000 people — mainly from the Kikuyu tribe — were killed, although some historians and rights groups claim the true figure is higher.

Tens of thousands more were rounded up and detained without trial in camps where reports of executions, torture and vicious beatings were common.

The royal visit also comes as pressure mounts in some Caribbean Commonwealth countries to remove the British monarch as head of state, and as republican voices in the UK grow louder.

‘Brutal treatment’ 

Kenya nevertheless has special resonance for the royal family.

It is the country where, in 1952, Elizabeth learned of the death of her father, King George VI, marking the start of her historic 70-year reign.

And it comes almost exactly four decades since Elizabeth’s own state visit in November 1983.

Charles and Camilla will be formally welcomed on Tuesday by Kenyan President William Ruto, who has hailed the visit as a “significant opportunity to enhance collaboration” in various fields.

During two days in the capital Nairobi, Charles will meet entrepreneurs and young Kenyans, and attend a state banquet hosted by Ruto.

He will also lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior in Uhuru Gardens, where Kenya declared independence in December 1963.

The royal couple will travel to the Indian Ocean port city of Mombasa, with a stop at a nature reserve and a meeting with religious leaders on the agenda.

Although the programme largely focuses on the environment, creative arts, technology and young people, Buckingham Palace said Charles will take time to “deepen his understanding of the wrongs suffered” by Kenyans during colonial rule.

On Sunday, the Kenya Human Rights Commission urged him to make an “unequivocal public apology... for the brutal and inhuman treatment inflicted on Kenyan citizens”, and pay reparations for colonial-era abuses.

‘Don’t have to beg’ 

Britain agreed in 2013 to compensate more than 5,000 Kenyans who had suffered abuse during the Mau Mau revolt, in a deal worth nearly 20 million pounds ($25 million at today’s rates).

Then foreign secretary William Hague said Britain “sincerely regrets” the abuses but stopped short of a full apology.

“The negative impacts of colonisation are still being felt to date, they are being passed from generation to generation, and it’s only fair the king apologises to begin the healing process,” delivery rider Simson Mwangi, 22, told AFP.

But 33-year-old chef Maureen Nkatha disagreed.

“He doesn’t have to apologise, it’s time for us to move on and forward. We are now an independent country and he is not coming to save us,” she said.

“We should welcome him like any other statesman, discuss areas of cooperation with him and bid him bye. We don’t have to beg.”

Kenya and Britain are key economic partners with two-way trade at around 1.2 billion pounds over the year to the end of March 2023.

But another lingering source of tension is the presence of British troops in Kenya, with soldiers accused of rape and murder, and civilians maimed by munitions.

In August, the Kenyan parliament launched an inquiry into the activities of the British army, which has a base near Nanyuki, a town about 200 kilometres north of Nairobi.

Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper has billed Kenya as “the first stop” on Charles’ “mission to save the Commonwealth”.

More than a dozen nations out of the Commonwealth grouping of 56 countries still recognise the UK monarch as head of state. 

But clamour to become a republic is growing among some, including Jamaica and Belize, with Barbados making the switch in 2021.

BERLIN — At least three workers were killed in the northern German city of Hamburg on Monday when a scaffolding collapsed at a building site, with a fourth person believed trapped in the rubble, a fire brigade spokeswoman told AFP.

The spokeswoman said a fifth labourer had been critically injured in the accident, in which the scaffolding suddenly broke apart in an eight-storey-high elevator shaft shortly after 0800 GMT.

The fire brigade had initially said that five labourers had been killed and an unspecified number were buried in the wreckage of the disaster. The cause of the collapse was not yet clear.

“The rescue operation is running in high gear,” the spokeswoman said.

Some 70 emergency responders were at the site seeking to rescue the trapped worker. The nationality of the victims was not yet determined.

The accident occurred in Hafen City, a once scruffy port district that has become one of the biggest urban construction projects in Europe.

The scaffolding came down at the Westfield Hamburg-Ueberseequartier, a business, residential and leisure development that is to include a major new cruise ship terminal when it is completed early next year.

The district combines new high-rise buildings with cafes, bars and riverside plazas designed to convert a previous industrial area into a lively quarter of Germany’s second city.

‘Highly dangerous’ 

Parent company Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield said in a statement sent to AFP that a “tragic accident” had occurred and that it was “supporting emergency responders and working with the authorities”.

“Our thoughts are primarily with the victims and all those who work at the building site” which has been fully evacuated, it said. 

“The rescue workers are on the scene and working closely with the police.”

The daily Bild said the scaffolding in a building elevator shaft came down on at least eight workers.

The entire construction site was evacuated, including some 700 workers, Bild said.

Police at the scene cordoned off the site with tape and a rescue helicopter and several ambulances arrived to transport injured workers recovered from the wreckage.

Public broadcaster NDR said the workers had fallen from the eighth floor of a building under construction. It said rescuers were using heavy equipment to clear the rubble and recover other victims.

It quoted a fire brigade spokesman as saying that the rescue work itself was “highly dangerous” for the staff at the scene. 

KATHMANDU — UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged the world on Monday to “stop the madness” of climate change as he visited Himalayan regions struggling from rapidly melting glaciers to witness the devastating impact of the phenomenon.

“The rooftops of the world are caving in,” Guterres said on a visit to the Everest region in mountainous Nepal, adding that the country had lost nearly a third of its ice in just over three decades.

“Glaciers are icy reservoirs — the ones here in the Himalayas supply fresh water to well over a billion people,” he said. “When they shrink, so do river flows.”

Nepal’s glaciers melted 65 per cent faster in the last decade than in the previous one, said Guterres, who is on a four-day visit to Nepal.

Glaciers in the wider Himalayan and Hindu Kush ranges are a crucial water source for around 240 million people in the mountainous regions, as well as for another 1.65 billion people in the South Asian and Southeast Asian river valleys below.

The glaciers feed 10 of the world’s most important river systems, including the Ganges, Indus, Yellow, Mekong and Irrawaddy, and directly or indirectly supply billions of people with food, energy, clean air and income.

Scientists say they are melting faster than ever before due to climate change, exposing communities to unpredictable and costly disasters.

“I am here today to cry out from the rooftop of the world: Stop the madness”, Guterres said, speaking from Syangboche village, with the icy peak of the world’s highest mountain Everest towering behind him.

‘Catastrophe’ 

“The glaciers are retreating, but we cannot. We must end the fossil fuel age,” he said.

The world has warmed an average of nearly 1.2ºC since the mid-1800s, unleashing a cascade of extreme weather, including more intense heatwaves, more severe droughts and storms made more ferocious by rising seas.

Hardest hit are the most vulnerable people and the world’s poorest countries, which have done little to contribute to the fossil fuel emissions that drive up temperatures.

“We must act now to protect people on the frontline, and to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees, to avert the worst of climate chaos,” Guterres said. “The world can’t wait.”

In the first phase of climate change’s effects, melting glaciers can trigger destructive floods.

“Melting glaciers mean swollen lakes and rivers flooding, sweeping away entire communities”, he added.

But all too soon, glaciers will dry up if change is not made, he warned.

“In the future, major Himalayan rivers like the Indus, the Ganges and Brahmaputra could have massively reduced flows,” he said. 

“That spells catastrophe.” 

MAKHACHKALA, Russia — Russia on Monday blamed "external interference" and singled out Ukraine for a riot in Muslim-majority Dagestan, which saw crowds of angry men overrunning an airport as they looked for Israeli passengers.

The mob descended onto Makhachkala airport Sunday evening, barging through barriers and taking over the runway, in an attempt to encircle a plane that had flown in from Israel.

Authorities said 60 people had been arrested, suspected of violently storming the airport and seeking to attack Jews.

The airport reopened Monday, but authorities reported some damage and an airline said its flights to Israel in the coming days were cancelled.

The Kremlin announced President Vladimir Putin would gather top advisers and spy chiefs later Monday to discuss the "West's attempts to use the events in the Middle East to split Russian society".

Moscow also accused Ukraine, which it has been fighting for more than 20 months, of orchestrating the riot.

Russia regularly blames domestic unrest on external, usually Western,  forces.

"Yesterday's events at Makhachkala airport are, to a large extent, the result of external interference," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

"Against the backdrop of TV footage showing the horrors of what is happening in the Gaza Strip, the deaths of people, children, old people, it is very easy for enemies to take advantage of and provoke the situation," Peskov told reporters on Monday.

Russia's foreign ministry later singled out Kyiv.

There was no immediate reaction from Kyiv to the allegations and Ukraine’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to an AFP request to comment.

 ‘Sow discord’ 

Russia’s Orthodox leader Patriarch Kirill also saw outside interference, condemning the violence as a bid to “sow discord” between Russia’s Jews and Muslims.

“I have no doubt that forces who provoked this incident will stop at nothing to cause disorder in our country,” the powerful cleric and Kremlin ally said.

The same day of the airport riot, Russian state media reported that a Jewish centre in another North Caucasus region — Kabardino-Balkaria — was set on fire.

The mountainous North Caucasus has had a Jewish community for centuries.

The day after the riot, AFP saw a police car with several officers outside Makhachkala’s synagogue.

The violence also prompted Israel to call on Russia to protect its citizens and Jews.

Outside a Moscow synagogue, people were shaken but unsurprised by the events, given rising global tensions over the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

“Political events should not set fire to our common home,” Ariel Razbegayev, the 37-year-old director of the Moscow Choral Synagogue, told AFP.

Prominent figures in Dagestan have spoken in support of Palestine and against Israel since the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel.

‘Stab in the back’ 

Rumours spread on Sunday that a Telegram channel owned by a former Russian lawmaker who now lives in Ukraine, Ilya Ponomarev, was behind the protests.

He has previously provided financial support to the Telegram channel called Utro Dagestan (Dagestan Morning) which called for protests at the airport on Sunday, independent media had reported.

Russia’s foreign ministry said Kyiv had used Ponomarev — granted Ukrainian citizenship in 2019 — to orchestrate the protests, accusing its enemy of “information-sabotage”.

Ponomarev’s spokesperson has not responded to AFP requests for comment.

The governor of Dagestan, Sergei Melikov, was also quick to find a Ukrainian trace.

He said the riots were instigated by social media posts from Utro Dagestan, run by “traitors” working from Ukraine.

He called the riot a “stab in the back” of Dagestani soldiers fighting in Ukraine.

According to independent reports, Dagestan has sent proportionately more men to fight in Ukraine than many ethnic Russian regions.

He called on his people not to succumb to “provocations” over events in Israel and Gaza.

“All Dagestanis empathise with the suffering of victims by the actions of unrighteous people and politicians and pray for peace in Palestine,” he said, vowing punishment.

“But what happened at our airport is outrageous and should receive the appropriate assessment from law enforcement.”

ISTANBUL — Turkey marked its centenary as a post-Ottoman republic on Sunday with somewhat muted celebrations held in the shadow of Israel’s escalating war with Hamas militants in Gaza.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was front and centre of day-long events that both honour the secular republic’s founder and play up the achievement of the Islamic-rooted party that has run Turkey since 2002.

“Our country is in safe hands, you may rest in peace,” Erdogan said after laying a wreath at the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk — the Turkish military commander.

Ataturk is lionised across Turkish society for driving out invading forces and building a brand new nation out of the fallen Ottoman Empire’s ruins in the wake of World War I.

Turkey was formed as a Westward-facing nation that stripped religion from its state institutions and tried to forge a modern new identity out its myriad ethnic groups.

It eventually became a proud member of the US-led NATO defence alliance and a beacon of democratic hopes in the Middle East.

Erdogan tapped into these as he led his conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP) to power over the leftist Republican People’s Party (CHP) formed by Ataturk.

He has spent much of the past decade testing the limits of Turkey’s secular traditions as well as its ties with the West.

These competing forces were on full display as Erdogan moved from honouring Turkey’s past to celebrating his own government’s achievement while he was prime minister and president.

Palestinian cause 

Sunday’s celebrations have been partially eclipsed by Erdogan’s increasingly fierce attacks against Israel over its response to the October 7 Hamas surprise attacks.

The militants killed 1,400 people and took 220 hostages in a surprise raid that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the worst in the history.

Israel has retaliated with ferocious air strikes and an unfolding ground offensive that the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says has claimed more than 8,000 lives.

Turkish state television has also scrapped the broadcast of concerts and other festivities because of the “alarming human tragedy in Gaza”.

Erdogan’s lifelong defence of Palestinian rights has turned him into a hero across swathes of the Muslim world.

He announced that 1.5 million people had come out for a pro-Palestinian rally in Istanbul on Saturday that ended up drowning out national television coverage of the centenary.

Erdogan accused the Israeli government of behaving like a “war criminal” and trying to “eradicate” Palestinians.

“Israel, you are an occupier,” Erdogan declared.

His remarks prompted Israel to announce the withdrawal of all diplomatic staff for a “re-evaluation” of relations.

Turbulent spell 

The emerging diplomatic crisis further pulled attention away from Turkey’s birthday party and onto Erdogan’s handling of global affairs.

Turkey has suffered a turbulent spell of relations with Western allies since Erdogan survived a failed coup attempt in 2016 that he blamed on a US-based Muslim preacher.

Istanbul’s Kadir Has University lecturer Soli Ozel saw Saturday’s pro-Palestinian rally as part of Erdogan’s tacit effort to support Gaza.

“Couldn’t [this rally] have waited until next week? The centenary only comes around once in a century,” Ozel said in an interview.

But one survey suggested that Erdogan’s comments play to his Islamic conservative core of supporters and not the public at large.

The Metropoll survey showed just 11.3 per cent of the respondents saying they “back Hamas”.

But 34.5 per cent said Turkey should stay “neutral” and 26.4 per cent said it should mediate.

PARIS — Ahead of UN climate talks in Dubai from November 30, here are 10 key dates in the battle against global warming.

1988 — Alarm bells 

Alerted by scientists to signs that the Earth’s surface was warming, in 1988 the United Nations established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to investigate.

Two years later, the panel reported that heat-trapping “greenhouse” gases generated by human activity were on the rise and could intensify planetary warming.

In a series of studies, evidence accumulated that human activities — voracious burning of coal, oil and gas; rainforest logging; and destructive farming practices — were heating the Earth’s surface, a prelude to disruptions of its climate system.

1992 — Earth Summit 

An “Earth Summit” in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 created the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, with the aim of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. 

Since 1995, so called “Conferences of the Parties”, or COPs, have been meeting to pursue that elusive goal.

1997 — Kyoto Protocol 

In 1997, nations agreed in Kyoto, Japan, on a 2008-2012 timeframe for industrialised nations to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by an average of 5.2 per cent from 1990 levels.

Developing countries, including China, India and Brazil, were not required to take on binding targets.

But in 2001, the United States, at the time the world’s biggest carbon emitter, refused to ratify the protocol, which took effect in 2005.

2007 — Nobel prize 

The IPCC reported in 2007 that evidence of global warming was now “unequivocal” and that extreme weather events would probably multiply.

In October 2007, the UN panel shared the Nobel Peace Prize with former US vice president Al Gore for their efforts in raising the alarm about climate change.

2009 — Copenhagen collapse 

Participants at the COP15 gathering in Copenhagen failed to achieve an agreement for the post-2012 period.

Several dozen major emitters, including China and the United States, announced a goal of limiting global temperature increases to 2ºC above pre-industrial levels but were vague on how the goal was to be reached.

2015: Breakthrough in Paris

In December 2015, nearly every nation on Earth committed to limit warming to “well below” 2ºC above pre-industrial levels.

A more ambitious cap of 1.5ºC is also adopted as the preferred target.

2018 — Greta Thunberg 

In 2018, Swedish teen Greta Thunberg started skipping school on Fridays to sit outside the Swedish parliament, demanding more substantive action to combat climate change.

Despite ending her Friday protests in 2023 after graduating, her protest inspired students worldwide to skip class each Friday in a bid for more efforts from global leaders.

2022 — Record emissions 

In 2022, the International Energy Agency reported that global CO2 emissions would hit an annual record.

But at a COP27 meeting that year in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, participants failed to agree on more ambitious emissions cuts.

2022 — Biodiversity deal 

An accord on biodiversity is reached in Montreal in December 2022, calling for the designation of 30 per cent of the planet’s land and oceans as protected zones by 2030, and an end of extinctions of threatened species due to human activities.

2023 — New warning 

The United Nations warned that despite efforts so far, the world would see its first full year at 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels in the early 2030s.

According to the European Union’s climate observatory Copernicus, global temperatures in the summer of 2023 were the hottest ever registered.

KARAGANDA, KAZAKHSTAN — Kazakhstan held nationwide mourning on Sunday after 42 people died in a blaze at an ArcelorMittal mine, the worst accident in the Central Asian country’s post-Soviet history. 

The tragedy, which struck at the Kostenko coal mine in the Karaganda region Saturday, came after a series of deadly incidents at ArcelorMittal mines and has prompted the nationalisation of the company’s local affiliate. 

“As of 3pm [09:00 GMT] the bodies of 42 people were found,” Kazakhstan’s emergency services said on social media. 

“The search for four miners continues.” 

Rescuers earlier warned that finding the remaining miners alive were “very low”, due to the lack of ventilation and the force of Saturday’s explosion, which spread 2 kilometres.

The death toll overtook a 2006 accident that killed 41 miners at another ArcelorMittal site. It also came just two months after another incident killed five miners. 

Anger and disbelief reigned after the disaster in Karaganda, central Kazakhstan.

“Every miner is a hero, because when he goes down, he does not know if he will come back or not,” said former miner Sergei Glazkov. 

Many welcomed the government’s move towards nationalisation, angered by the company’s safety record. 

Daniar Mustafin, a 42-year-old salesman, said he favoured “full nationalisation without material compensation for the current owners”.

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has ordered cooperation with the Luxembourg-based company to be “brought to an end”.

Speaking to victims’ relatives at the mine, Tokayev called ArcelorMittal “the worst enterprise in Kazakhstan’s history in terms of cooperation with the government”.

The Kazakh government and the steel giant announced a preliminary agreement to “transfer ownership of the [local] firm in favour of the Republic of Kazakhstan”, Prime Minister Alikhan Smailov stated.

“ArcelorMittal can confirm that the two parties have... signed a preliminary agreement for a transaction that will transfer ownership to the Republic of Kazakhstan,” the global steel giant stated, adding it was committed to “finalising this transaction as soon as possible”.

On Sunday, flags were at half-mast to mark the day of national mourning declared by Tokayev, an AFP correspondent saw.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, about 200 miners have died in Kazakhstan, the vast majority at ArcelorMittal sites. 

‘His guardian angel saved him’

There were 252 people inside the mine when the fire started, ArcelorMittal said. 

Outside a hospital in Karaganda, relatives of those who had survived the blast were thanking the heavens. 

“His guardian angel saved him. He is alive,” said Nikolai Bralin, the brother of an injured miner. 

“Two of his ribs were slightly torn apart from the blow and he had surgery to put them back in place,” he added. 

Local politicians also called for the immediate nationalisation of the company. 

“They must answer before court because they did not ensure people’s safety,” said local MP Kudaibergen Beksultanov. 

“The state needs to take it upon itself now.” 

The group’s arrival in Kazakhstan in 1995 was initially seen as a beacon of hope during the economic slump that followed the fall of communism. 

But a lack of investment and inadequate safety standards were repeatedly criticised by the authorities, while trade unions called for tighter government control. 

ArcelorMittal, led by Indian businessman Lakshmi Mittal, operates some 15 factories and mines in the centre of the former Soviet republic.